


Deadpool's Marvelous Non-Denominational Winter Celebration

by Moosepelheim



Series: Limerence [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Deadpool - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Humor, Multi, Team as Family, non-linear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 30,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8732650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moosepelheim/pseuds/Moosepelheim
Summary: None of them are really sure what this is. In the years that they have worked and lived together, this has never happened before. But here they all are, seated in the living room at six-in-the-morning, watching as Deadpool—who insists on being called Santa, and is in fact wearing a Santa hat—wrassles with a gigantic red bag of presents. He kicks an arm chair across the floor until it’s directly in front of the tree, and then sits down purposefully.“Okay kids!” he says, digging his hand in to rummage around. “The first presents go to--”(A series of short vignettes. Updates once a day until the 25th.)





	1. It's too early for this shit.

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to post every day of December until Christmas, and I missed yesterday and I was like "ugh, whatever" but then tonight I thought "You know what? _Not_ whatever. I'm gonna do this."
> 
> So, come on this adventure with me. There will be a chapter every day... unless there isn't a chapter, and then I'll probably post two chapters the next day (like I'm doing today). I'll write twenty-five chapters by Christmas... unless I don't. But I'm gonna finish this bitch regardless, even if it takes me longer than I wanted it to.
> 
> Why? Because fuck you, winter depression!

None of them are really sure what this is. In the years that they have worked and lived together, this has never happened before. 

But here they all are, seated in the living room at six-in-the-morning, watching as Deadpool—who insists on being called Santa, and is in fact wearing a Santa hat—wrassles with a gigantic red bag of presents. He kicks an arm chair across the floor until it’s directly in front of the tree, and then sits down purposefully.

“Okay kids!” he says, digging his hand in to rummage around. “The first presents go to--”


	2. Bucky

Bucky is impossible to buy presents for.

This is partly because whenever someone asks him what he might like for Christmas, he says “Oh, I dunno. I was always happy just to get an orange, you know?”

Sam is certain he’s just trolling, but Natasha ‘hmms’ thoughtfully. “It’s hard to ask for things after a while, when you’re used to being punished for it,” she says, eyes going dim with memory.

Which is really depressing and exactly what he didn’t need to hear. Steve isn’t helpful on the Bucky front either.

“Any idea what Bucky might want for Christmas?” Sam asks Steve, hopefully.

Steve thinks carefully, tapping his bottom lip. “Usually he’s pretty happy just to get an orange,” he says.

No help from Steve then, so Sam and Tony agree to help each other figure something out. Their present will be from the both of them, so that neither of them has to work that hard to buy a present for one of the least materialistic people they know.

Tony wants to go big. “He keeps stealing my cars, so I was thinking…”

“Absolutely not,” says Sam, folding his arms.

“Why?” asks Tony, also folding his arms, because he doesn’t like being told what to do.

“Because that’s not fair to the rest of us.”

Sam wants to go sentimental. “He used to love dancing. We should buy him and Steve dancing lessons, so they can learn some modern moves.”

When they ask Steve about his opinion, Steve goes slightly pink with embarrassment. “I already got us dancing lessons,” he explains. “Sorry, you guys.”

The first night of Hanukkah will fall on December 24th this year, so Wanda and Peter are going to co-celebrate with them. Sam decides to see if Wanda has any clue what Bucky might want.

“I’m making him ‘magic fingers’ coupons,” she says, shrugging.

Sam rolls his eyes. “That’s what you always give people!”

“I’m making all of you ‘magic fingers’ coupons,” she says, shrugging again. “You’re lucky you’re getting anything, you materialistic bastards.”

She gives really good massages so Sam doesn’t grumble too loudly.

Peter is very secretive about what he’s getting Bucky. “I’m not giving up my lead,” he says, guardedly.

“Come on, help us out,” whines Sam. “He talks to you the most besides Steve. You have to know something.”

“He likes oranges,” Peter says before hanging up the phone.

Vision just stares at them when they ask him what he thinks Bucky will want, so they back out of the room and pretend nothing happened.

Wade has been very persistent lately, spending a lot of time with them (breaking into the compound) and going out of his way to make things festive (stalking them/kidnapping them and forcing them on adventures), so after a lot of internal conflict, Sam decides to ask him what he thinks.

“Weapons,” says Wade without hesitation. “Weapons. And ammo.”

“Rrrright,” Sam says, regretting his decision to engage in any sort of conversation with King Cuckoo-Banana Pants.

Sam and Tony decide to buy Bucky a gift card to Amazon and call it good. They take a page from Wanda’s book and get everyone the same thing.

Then everything goes kinda… _whacky_ for a while. Like a _Martha Stewart: Living_ magazine on meth.

So by the time Christmas morning comes they’re not entirely surprised when Wade breaks in to the compound at the ass-crack of dawn (actually, dawn is still an hour away) and forces each of them into the living room (some of them at gunpoint, literally). It’s the logical progression of the last few weeks.

Peter is there, still in his pajamas, with the mask pulled securely on. “This isn’t my fault,” he says as they all find a seat. “I didn’t want to be here.”

“No one blames you, kid,” says Bucky.

Wade, who is wearing his red suit and a Santa hat which clashes carefully with it, is kicking a chair across the floor.

“Dude, just pick it up!” yells Sam, but Wade persists until the chair is in front of the tree.

“Okay kids!” he says, digging his hand in to rummage around. “The first presents go to Bucky!”

“Wait…” says Sam, leaning forward. “Are those _our_ fucking presents? The presents that were _stolen_ two days ago?”

“Yeah!” says Wade excitedly, rummaging around inside.

“You’re fucking crazy,” says Tony with an air of resignation. He doesn’t drink alcohol anymore, so he drinks green tea instead. He looks like he wishes it was scotch.

Wade pulls out the first gift, which is a pretty blue envelope with gold stars all over it. “From Steve to Bucky,” announces Wade, passing the gift to Bucky.

Bucky reads it quickly, the grin on his face growing brighter. “This is perfect, baby,” Bucky says, leaning over to give Steve a loving kiss. “I can’t wait to dance with you. I know you’re going to be _amazing_.”

Wade pulls out the next gift, which is from Wanda. It’s the massage coupons, which Bucky accepts gratefully. “After last night I think I’m gonna cash these in this afternoon. That alright?” he asks. Wanda nods happily.

Vision’s gift is surprisingly thoughtful--he has donated $5000 to an organization that gives service animals to veterans experiencing debilitating PTSD. Bucky looks a little choked up and Vision looks… smug.

“That’s a really good gift,” Sam whispers to Tony. “I feel like a jackass”.

Tony gropes Sam’s thigh thoughtfully. “Nah, you feel fine to me.”

Sam slaps Tony’s hand away. “Don’t touch me there. That’s one of my sweet spots.”

Sam and Tony’s paltry gift is next.

Bucky opens their card and chokes. “$3000? Jesus-Fucking-Christ, you guys.”

Sam also chokes, turning to Tony. “Whathefuck?” When they agreed on Amazon gift cards, Sam had chipped in $50 per person, which was pretty fucking generous, he thought.

Tony’s eyes glitter and he winks at Sam.

Clint isn’t with them, but he has sent along a gift for Bucky. It is a set of nail varnishes in a rainbow of colors, and Bucky looks at each color carefully, tapping his favorites with a thoughtful finger.

T’challa, Everett, and Okoye give Bucky a small pendant on a leather string (Sam suspects the pendant is made of vibranium, which… jesus christ that’s cool), a small cactus, and a knife, respectively. Bucky puts the amulet on, tucks the knife into his pocket, and cradles the tiny cactus. “It’s cute because it’s tiny,” says Bucky, grinning down at it like it’s a precious puppy and not a spiky pain-plant.

“From Natasha to Bucky,” Wade reads aloud before handing the card over to Bucky.

Bucky and Natasha exchange a glance and Bucky opens the card, reading quickly. His smile is soft, and he blinks up at her. “Thank you. It’s exactly what I asked for.” It’s a subscription to a fruit of the month club. Bucky will receive boxes of fresh fruit for a year, starting with… oranges. Natasha nods at him curtly, but it’s obvious the gift means something bigger to both of them. It’s solidarity in the face of learning how to ask for what they want again, which is scary for both of them sometimes.

Peter’s gift is next. Wade has some difficulty pulling it out of the massive sack, but Bucky inhales sharply as soon as Wade finally gets it out. It’s a giant glass tank, filled with all manner of items. Peter explains everything excitedly.

“So, I didn’t get you the snake, but I got you all the stuff you _need_ for a snake. I cross referenced a lot of different care sheets for ball pythons and all of them agreed that a good setup has an Under Tank Heater, a thermostat to regulate the mat, two combination hydro-slash-thermometers so you can have one to monitor the hot and cool side of the tank, multiple hides, and a water dish that’s large enough for the snake to sit inside."

Peter inhales deeply and continues. "Now, bedding was controversial. Some people preferred aspen bedding, but some people swore by paper towels or newspaper. I got you a smallish bag of aspen to try out. They said a mesh top tank makes it difficult to keep the right humidity, which can impact shedding, so you might want to wrap the top it in plastic wrap or something to keep the moisture in better. Or you can use sphagnum moss to make a humid hide."

Peter is quiet for a split second and Sam is worried he might have passed out, but then he inhales again and continues. "Oh, and I wrote up a guide based on everything I read and also put together a list of exotic animal vets so you know where to go in case something bad happens.”

“How the fuck did you afford this?” Bucky asks, looking at Peter with awe and concern.

“Uh… I sold some pictures,” he says sheepishly.

Bucky looks alarmed. “What kind of pictures?”

Peter looks down at his hands, body language tense. “The… the Bugle’s been looking to buy pictures of Spider-man for their attack articles. They’re actually paying pretty decently, so… so I got some shots.”

“Kid!” shouts Tony angrily. “Don’t _help_ those bastards!”

Peter is unrepentant. “Is it okay? Did I do good?” he asks Bucky.

Bucky looks at the tank, looks at all the effort that Peter went to, and grins. “Yeah kid. This is… this is incredible. Thank you.” He stands up and actually hugs Peter, who hugs back happily. Bucky sits back down and smiles at his pile of gifts. “Thank you, everyone. This… this is probably the best Christmas I’ve ever had…”

“One more gift,” says Wade, fishing around in the bag. He pulls out several large boxes.

“How the fuck is that bag holding all this shit?” Tony asks incredulously.

Most of the boxes are square-ish, but one of them is long and rectangular. This is the box that Wade places in front of Bucky, who opens it with hesitant hands.

Inside is a rifle.

Sam doesn’t know much about guns, but judging from Tony and Bucky’s faces this gun is a damn good gun. Even Natasha looks a little wistful. No one else knows what the big fucking deal is, but an explanation isn’t forthcoming.

Bucky looks at the gun like it’s a lover and Tony looks at it with a jealous lust. “I’ll suck your dick if you give that to me,” Tony says, nodding at the case.

“You’d have to kill me to get this,” Bucky says, closing the case protectively. He checks inside one of the square-ish boxes, which is full of ammunition. Good ammunition, on par with the gun, judging by the way Tony sighs longingly. Bucky stares up at Wade. “How?”

“I’m Santa,” Wade says mysteriously.

“You’re not Santa, you just wear a red suit and are good at breaking and entering,” says Natasha with a smirk.

“Santa,” Wade says stubbornly.

Bucky shakes his head, staring at the bounty before him. “Just… this is amazing, Wade. Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done. I know I wanted to throttle you when it started, but we all needed this.”

Wade stares at Bucky impassively, mask hiding any hint of expression.

Then Wade claps his hands together and the spell is broken.

“Alright, next we have--”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Biscuit says I have an unhealthy obsession with snakes, and I really should stop shoehorning them into my stories. I say she's just a snake and has no idea what she's talking about.


	3. Cooookies.

The gentle smell of vanilla drifts mysteriously through the early morning air, accompanying the dawning of the first Sunday in December. In retrospect Steve will find it almost a pleasant start to the madness that will be visited upon them in the coming weeks.

They all rise at the same time, which is unusual considering it is Sunday and they all tend to spend it sleeping in, waking up randomly, maybe never even speaking with one another until dinner. They are drawn as a group into the kitchen by the same instinct, and are alarmed to discover that Wade has broken in again and…

“How did you get in here… and why did you make a million cookies?” Tony asks in the tone of voice that seems reserved for Wade; frustrated and confused. Tony is always amused and condescending with everyone else, able to rise above friend and foe alike with his detached sarcasm. For all his genius Tony is helpless to anticipate or rise above Wade’s antics.

“We gotta get our baking in early! So much to do, so much to do,” Wade trills as he waltzes around the kitchen, setting out little bowls of colored frosting, nonpareils, cinnamon candies, and those little silver ball things that shouldn’t be edible but somehow are. He wears a frilly apron and a Santa cap that clashes horribly with his suit.

There are sugar cookies in an alarming variety of shapes (which don’t seem to be entirely seasonal—Steve spots spiders, ghosts, and cat shaped cookies among more traditional shapes), cookies with little dollops of red jam, cookies with chocolate kisses or peanut butter cups pressed into the center, gleaming white meringues, and little rounded cookies that have been rolled in powdered sugar. The sheer number of cookies that fill the kitchen space is distracting enough that they don’t notice Peter until he says “This wasn’t my idea. He threatened to blow up the Taco-Taco truck if I didn’t help.” He’s sitting dejectedly at the kitchen island, nearly hidden behind stacked wire racking that holds more cookies.

Steve frowns at Wade who says airily “Not my fault the kid can’t recognize an empty threat when he hears one.”

“How did you break in?” asks Tony again, but Wade distracts him by dragging him over to the table.

“You, Mr. Stark, will be constructing the gingerbread house, since you’re probably the only one of us shmucks that understands anything about architecture.” Wade gestures at a precarious stack of gingerbread slabs. “Start building.”

Steve winces internally, expecting Stark to go postal. Being told to do anything drives Tony up the wall, especially when he’s told to do something by someone he hates. Tony looks down at the pile with consideration, then back up at Wade’s impassive mask. “Glue?”

Wade points to a bowl behind the stack of gingerbread. “Meringue powder, powdered sugar, and enough water to bind and make it spreadable.”

Tony nods. “Good, that’ll dry quickly before it can weaken the integrity of the gingerbread. Alright, folks, stand back while I make the best fucking gingerbread house you’ve ever seen.”

Steve turns to look at Natasha with alarm and she returns his look of shock. “Christmas miracle?” he murmurs.

“Mind control,” she answers.

Each of them in turn are bullied into position by a disgustingly cheerful Wade. Sam, Bucky, and Vision are tasked with stuffing one of each variety of cookie into decorative bags, while Wanda, Natasha, and Steve are tasked with decorating the miles of undecorated sugar cookies.

Steve resents being woken up early, but… he can’t help it, he loves this sort of thing. Each cookie he decorates is a piece of art. The little soldier cookies uniforms are crisp, silver buttons in a straight row. He pipes wrapping paper designs, little holly berries or snowflakes, on the present shaped cookies. The Santa cookies receive flowing white beards and jolly red cinnamon cheeks. Hours into it and he’s still enjoying himself immensely.

Natasha seems to have decided to take out her aggression by making the cookies… disturbing. Each of her soldiers is wounded, red frosting and red sugar crystals caking the wounds, little white spots of exposed leg bones.  The ballerinas are beheaded, and the Santas all look like monsters. “Krampus,” she says with a twisted grin.

“You’re a sick puppy, Romanov,” says Wade approvingly.

Wanda, meanwhile, is just dunking the cookies into the frosting and laying them back on the sheet. She finishes decorating her share of the cookies in record time, and then wanders over to help Vision assemble the cookie bags. Steve resists the urge to zhuzh up her cookies and leaves them alone. He’s learning to control his control issues. Bucky notices Steve carefully not messing with Wanda’s cookies and gives him a thumbs up.

Once the frosting has dried the sugar cookies are added to the assortments and tied off with pretty ribbon.

“Great, now we have… 400 bags of cookies,” Tony says, snorting. “I’m all about excess. I’m the fucking king of excess, but even I know this is--”

“They aren’t for us,” says Wade, waspishly.

“Come again?” asks Sam.

Wade sets aside one bag per Avenger and then directs Peter to start loading the cookie bags into boxes. Then he cajoles them all into carrying the boxes out to be loaded onto a bus that’s painted bright red.

Some of the team are still in pajamas, so Wade sends them back inside to get changed. “You have fifteen minutes before I come in to extract you,” he warns, and they know he means it.

“God I hope he isn’t taking us out into the middle of nowhere to kill us,” Sam whispers. Steve admits that he’s not entirely on board with getting on board the bus.

But once they’re all loaded onto the bus Wade drives them down to a homeless shelter so they can give the cookies out to the residents.

It’s anticlimactic but also shocking.  

Everyone at the shelter is much more excited about the cookies than about the Avengers handing out the cookies in the dining room, and it’s… nice. This isn’t a publicity stunt, no one takes pictures of them, it’s unlikely there will be a story about it in the paper tomorrow.

The staff are pleasant but overworked and, again, clearly uninterested in the Avengers. They’re just happy the clients are being distracted temporarily so they can catch up on paperwork or the endless tasks that are a part of running a Winter Shelter program.

Wade seems to know most of the residents. He’s on good terms with some of them, like—

“Momma!” he cries. “Everyone, this is Momma,” he places a hand on the shoulder of a tall woman in her late 60s. Her face looks like it’s been carved out of stone, but her eyes are warm. Her clothing is thin and worn, ratty gloves on her arthritic hands. Steve aches a little, wishing they’d brought gloves and hats for people, vowing to come back later with a truck load of supplies.

“Pleasure to meet you,” the woman says. “Wade here’s real good about taking care of us. Other heroes ignore us, but he’s always there. I haven’t been robbed or beaten up since…”

“October,” Wade supplies, nodding happily. “Last fucker that tried to stick up Momma got a stick up his woo-hoo.”

Other residents he’s less friendly with. “ _Kevin_ ,” Wade says likes it’s a curse word.

Kevin is a scrawny kid, face full of acne, anemic facial hair dusting his cheeks and chin like snow in the desert. “ _Wade_ ,” Kevin says, with matching animosity. Wade hands Kevin a bag of cookies, Kevin takes the cookies and walks away. Neither man breaks eye contact until the last moment when Kevin turns the corner and heads back into the main room.

“What the hell was that about?” asks Peter, leaning forward.

“ _Kevin_ ,” spits Wade, “Spoiled the sixth Harry Potter book for me. So I spoiled Game of Thrones for him. _Bastard_.”

An elderly man that reeks of urine, and something worse, wanders up to them. Wade rushes over, cradling the man’s hands in his own. “Padre,” he says reverently.

“My son,” says the man, nodding pleasantly.

“I looked for you in the dumpster behind Taco Palace but I couldn’t find you. I feared the worst.”

“I decided to come in out of the cold, my son. God warned me that I would not survive the winter. I am loathe to take a bed from someone needier than myself, but I fear that god requires me on the earth a little longer,” the man says, sighing slightly. “Sometimes I grow weary of this burden.”

Wade hands him a packet of cookies and the man blesses Wade and wanders off, although his smell takes a few minutes to follow after.

Once every resident has been given a bag of cookies, they pack up and move to a different shelter.

The same scene repeats itself—Wade greets each resident by name, some warmly, some coldly, some pleasantly indifferent.

“Do you know every homeless person in the city?” Sam asks after a while, looking at Wade with a strange expression.

“Of course not, just the ones I’ve helped,” Wade says, handing a bag over to a young woman that Steve strongly suspects is a prostitute. “Hey Millie.”

“Wilson,” she says, nodding at him.

“So far that’s just, oh, about everyone we’ve met so far,” Sam says, incredulously. “That’s nearly _two hundred_ people, Wade.”

“Yeah, and there’s nearly 70,000 homeless in this city,” Wade says coldly. “Some nights it’s like I’m the only one out there fighting for ‘em.”

Sam bites his lip and looks away, and Steve feels a little ashamed. They do the big missions and sometimes they do outreach work, but Wade’s right. Not a lot of superheroes seem to be lining up to help the swelling population of people experiencing homelessness. They are often the survivors of the wars that plague the city, displaced after some goon or well-meaning hero levels their apartment.

Tony has been strangely quiet the entire time, handing bags of cookies out with a small smile on his face. He looks peaceful and content.

They visit one last shelter and have just enough cookies for everyone inside. Wade pumps his fist in triumph after he hands the last bag to a little girl, who runs off to attack her cookies at the table with the rest of her family. “Perfect!”

Wade is a weird man. A dangerous man. But putting the weird and dangerous aside, he has this child-like sweetness that is almost heart breaking.

“Quit it,” says Wade, and even though he’s not looking at Steve, somehow Steve knows he’s being addressed.

“Wasn’t doing anything,” Steve says, shrugging in confusion.

“You’re thinking I’m a good guy for feeding the homeless. Well I’ll have you know I’m not cute and sweet, and I didn’t do this out of the kindness of my own heart. This is a _job_.”

Steve nods. “Okay, I get it. You’re an irredeemable asshole with a heart of blackest ice.”

Wade is a very bad liar.

Wade says his goodbyes to the few individuals inside with whom he shares a particular comradery, and then they all pile back onto the bus. The day passed in the blink of an eye, and none of them have eaten, so they order pizza when they get back.

Wade and Peter have a half-hearted argument over what to get.

“Sausage and mushroom,” Wade says.

“Pineapple and ham,” Peter insists.

“You’re Jewish! You can’t eat pineapple!” Wade shouts, throwing his hands up.

Tony steps in and orders one of everything on the menu.

Steve grew up in the depression. He knows hunger and fear, remembers the many times he was one day away from losing his place and ending up on the street too. Although, Bucky wouldn’t have let that happen, but Steve would have probably tried to find a way to keep Bucky from finding out, and it would have been a horrible dramatic mess.

It’s hard to reconcile the age of excess (twelve massive pizzas, like that much food is _nothing_ ) with the desperation he saw today. Families with small children comprised the majority of the residents in the shelters they visited, and the remaining individuals were mainly elderly, mentally ill, addicts, or all three.

Steve looks at his pizza but can’t bring himself to eat it.

Wade nudges his knee until he looks up. “You don’t honor the hungry by starving, just like you don’t honor the dead by dying. Eat your fucking pizza, Steve.”

So, Steve eats his fucking pizza, because it’s true.

Life must be lived and pleasures must be enjoyed, precisely because there is pain and anguish in the world. It would be ungrateful to do anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it isn't obvious, this story is non-linear.


	4. Wanda.

Bucky shakes his head, staring at the bounty before him. “Just… this is amazing, Wade. Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done. I know we wanted to throttle you when it started, but we all needed this.”

Wade stares at Bucky impassively, mask hiding any hint of expression.

Then Wade claps his hands together and the spell is broken.

“Alright, next we have Wanda!” he says, leaning back down to rummage around in the bag.

“I didn’t want presents,” she says quickly, frowning at everyone. “I told all of you I wanted nothing.”

“Oh shut up and let us love you,” says Natasha with good humor. “I promise you’ll like it.”

Wanda stares at the bag in trepidation, intimidated by the thought that she might receive a flood of gifts similar to the one Bucky enjoyed. She… she really doesn’t like _things_. Possessions scare her, for reasons she’s not entirely sure of, and doesn’t want to explore.

But all Wade pulls from the bag is a small handmade book of construction paper coupons like the ones she gifted to her teammates, bound together with duct tape. A wry smile begins to tug its way across her face and she looks around at everyone. They all start giggling.

“We each made one,” Bucky explains as Wade hands her the book. She examines each coupon in turn.

Natasha’s coupon is the first in the book, on thick red paper. It is for “One all-expenses paid ‘girls only’ road-trip to the location of your choice.”

Natasha and Wanda gravitated towards each other initially out of necessity, being the only women on the team. It does not go unnoticed or unremarked upon that they are still the only two women. Their affection for each other developed gradually as the two naturally guarded women learned to trust each other, through battles fought together and quiet moments of brokenness afterwards.

The first time Natasha had cried in front of Wanda was terrifying. It had been a bad fight and Sam had been injured, knocked from the sky and fallen what had seemed too great a distance. In the end he’d suffered a broken leg and two fractured ribs, but he’d been awake and sassy before long. Wanda was relieved and prepared to move onwards, but Natasha came to her room late that night and fell on the bed. Wanda held her close and, when the sobs subsided and Natasha fell asleep, lay awake and wondered if maybe Natasha had placed too must trust in her.

Natasha smiles as Wanda rushes over to hug her. “This is perfect. I want to go everywhere though! I need more coupons!” Wanda gushes.

“We can take a really long road trip if you want. Everyone else gets to buzz off for their own adventures, so why can’t we?” Natasha says happily.

The next coupon is Bucky’s, on silvery paper, and it is for “One all-expenses paid Friend Date: Redeemable at the Movies, the Spa, or Coney Island.”

Bucky is not, and never could be a replacement for Pietro. Just as she could never be a replacement for Bucky’s sister. But, that being said, Bucky has become like a brother. She can turn to him for advice, comfort, friendly antagonism—it doesn’t fill the space in her heart that Pietro left, but it eases certain aches. There is much that goes unsaid between Bucky and Wanda, but she knows that he feels the same way.

“All three,” demands Wanda.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Babe, I’m not made of money!”

“You owe me for that time you put a fish in my bed.” That had been wholly unpleasant, but Wanda had held off on demanding recompense for such a moment as this. “You will take me on the greatest friend date of all time, or I will haunt you with fish.”

“Fine,” says Bucky, but he doesn’t sound as put upon as he’d like. Wanda knows that he looks forward to this friend date as much as she does.

Steve’s coupon is next and it startles a laugh out of Wanda.

Now, Steve is one of the best people she knows. He’s sweet, thoughtful, nurturing, astonishingly funny when he wants to be, and just all around one of the best friends anyone could ask for. He’s also a fucking menace, overbearing, nosy, and overly dramatic, and they’ve had many fights before where Wanda has screamed at him to “mind your own fucking business, Steve!”

So, he has given her a bright blue coupon declaring itself to be a “’Drop it’ coupon: no questions asked, no eyes rolled, no pressure applied. Redeemable whenever you need me to mind my own fucking business.”

“So the next time I get the flu?” Wanda asks, eyes twinkling.

Steve grins. “I’m getting better at boundaries, but I refuse to leave you alone if I think you’re getting ill or working too hard.”

Wanda rolls her eyes but takes victory where she can.

Sam and Tony stuck their overloaded Amazon gift card into the book, taping it to a sheet of construction paper.

“We got the card before the rest of these shmucks came up with the coupon book idea,” Sam explains. “However, you got free huggin’ privileges whenever you want. No coupon necessary. I give really good hugs,” he says, opening his arms and raising an eyebrow. Wanda giggles helplessly and throws her arms around Sam.

Sam is… Well. She might be wrapped around Vision’s finger, but she still has a horrible crush on Sam. It’s not sexual. That’s not what crushes are about. It’s just that Sam seems to be everything that she would like to be—confident without being arrogant, caring without being obsessive, funny but not cruel, intelligent but capable of admitting when he doesn’t know something. She admires him.

She steps back from Sam (who really does give amazing hugs) and turns to Tony who opens his arms. She rests her head against his chest and curls into his brain with scarlet tendrils, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that he loves her deeply. It’s wonderful, really, after all this time he still hasn’t balked at this contact. He welcomes the intrusion, accepts her and her childish need to _know._ They stay like that for a few long moments, silent as they usually are since they do not require words.

She turns the page and is surprised to see that Peter has written her a coupon. She smiles gently at the chicken scratch of his handwriting, and looks up at him. They have a strange sort of almost-friendship. He doesn’t spend much time at the compound, and doesn’t always fight with them on the field. They’ve not had any real contact or personal conversation.

The most they had was when Peter joined them on a picnic in the summer. He had come swinging down through the trees, gracefully, and then…

For a pre-cognate, Peter was very frequently caught off guard. A squirrel, narrowly escaping the *thwip* of a web, turned angrily and launched itself at Peter’s face. Peter, caught by the surprise attack and blinded by the scrabbling rodent attached to his face, came crashing down heavily, knocking into Wanda and dashing her beautiful sandwich to the ground.

Peter had been mortified, Wanda had been delirious with laughter, but neither of them had been able to bridge the awkward gap into friendship.

Peter’s coupon offers “One free sandwich.”

They share a look, and though Wanda can’t see behind the mask, she knows that his expression is hopeful. She giggles and shakes her head, and he shrugs his shoulders in a way that indicates pleasure.

Then she looks at Vision’s coupon and turns as scarlet as her magic. The coupon… the coupon is…

“Please tell me that no one else read this,” she says, turning to look at everyone in the room. Their smug expressions answer the question and she groans.

“Lucky girl,” says Natasha giving her a wink.

“I’m actually really, really curious about--” Peter says, but Steve slaps the back of his head to silence him.

Wanda winces up at Vision who shrugs. “I am not ashamed, nor should you be. We are lovers.”

“Well, okay, but… I didn’t want anyone else to have _details,_ ” Wanda hisses.

Vision leans down to kiss her thoroughly and Wanda decides that she isn’t embarrassed after all. Especially since he’s… he’s offering to do _that._

The rest of the coupons offer things like freedom from one onerous chore a week, or the right to choose the team dinners. She clutches the book to her chest and feels loved.

The trio of T’challa, Everett, and Okoye are not well known to her. After accidentally killing the goodwill ambassadors, Wanda had never really been able to face T’challa. The last few days have made it a little less daunting, but still they are not entirely comfortable around each other. The trio has not contributed to the coupon book, but they give her a small gift anyway. It is a small stone that fits well in her hand, heavy and cold, the color of blackest night.

“A worry stone,” T’challa explains. “The stone itself naturally occurs in my kingdom. It is a type of obsidian, found in the same seams that yield vibranium. It is not valuable to anyone outside my country, but for ourselves we find many uses. It is pleasant to touch, and is often made into objects that are meant to be handled.”

Wanda can understand why. Even after handling the stone for a few minutes it remains steadfastly cold, comforting in her hand as she fiddles with it.

“Thank you, everyone,” she says, smiling at all of them.

“One more gift,” Wade says, fishing around in the bag.

Wanda holds her breath, anxiety in the pit of her stomach. She really, really does not like gifts. 

Wade pulls out a battered business card and hands it to Wanda.

 _Dr. Strange_ it says, and underneath is a phone number.

“He can help you control your powers better,” Wade says confidently. “He’s kinda a sanctimonious prick, but he’s smart and you can trust him.”

Wanda stares at the card, then up again at Wade.

Over the past two days Wanda has been confronted, over and over again, with just how much she needs to find a way to control her power. She needs a teacher. Someone to help her find her center. Someone to make her less of a danger to others.  She had not spoken the desire aloud, and yet Wade offered her what she sought, with no judgement or scorn. If Steve or Tony had offered this card to her, she would have felt chastised like a child, or shamed perhaps.

But, because it’s Wade, all Wanda feels is gratitude and relief. If Wade says this man can help her than Wanda believes it.

“Thank you,” she says, and steps in front of him for a hug. Wade hesitates, standing up awkwardly, but Wanda is patient as he shuffles forward slowly into her embrace. He is like a startled animal, but Wanda hugs him gently and he allows it. He pats her awkwardly and steps back.

“Weird,” he says.

“You can’t swoop into our lives like this and then not expect us to claim you back,” Wanda says, sitting down and staring at the card.

“It’s just a job,” Wade says, shrugging. “I keep telling you that.”

“Yeah right,” says Steve. “Just like feeding the homeless was a job, or decorating the tree, or the snowball fight. I don’t believe for an instant that someone is _paying_ you to do all this. You like us, we like you, so just… shut up and keep passing out presents.”

Wade sighs heavily, but dutifully continues passing out presents. “Next up is--”


	5. Christmas Dinner.

Dinner is subdued. They are all exhausted and in pain, and the most they can manage to make is cereal. At least they are eating together, but not everyone appreciates that.

“This sucks,” says Sam. “I was supposed to be with Violet in Tennessee, eating until my stomach burst.”

“Shaddap,” says Tony, who is eating his Wheaties with eggnog. He’s regretting the decision, because it’s a disgusting combination.

“The way things were going I sort of hoped that…” Steve begins, but cuts himself off.

They all know what he was hoping.

Since the holiday rollercoaster ride that is Deadpool began they’ve been living out pretty much every Middle-class American holiday fantasy, more or less. They’ve fed the homeless, put up the tree, decorated cookies, wrapped presents for hundreds of children, had an epic snowball fight, drove around looking at Christmas lights, sang Christmas carols (sort of)—of all the nights for Deadpool to come through, they would have expected it to be this night.

Christmas Eve dinner.

But here they are eating cereal, still covered in blood and plaster. It’s not very festive.

But before they can fight over who gets the last bowl of cocoa puffs, an amazing smell comes floating through from the living room to the kitchen. They turn and filter out into the living room to see that Deadpool has indeed come through.

“Sorry for being late, I couldn’t find cranberry sauce,” he says, and waves with a flourish at the scene behind him. Their dining room table was destroyed around the same time the presents were stolen, so he’s set up Christmas dinner around the living room, on end tables and foot stools. Everyone takes a seat, and Sam hugs Deadpool before sitting down.

“You are my hero,” he mumbles.

Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, homemade rolls, jalapeno corn bread, tortillas, Brussel sprouts and walnuts cooked in bacon, shrimp, oysters, tamales, greens, macaroni and cheese, the small plate of gelatinous cranberry sauce, and something that looks like a mound of dirt set proudly in the center of a crystal dish.

“Christmas pudding,” Deadpool says to Bucky who is eyeing it suspiciously. “I know it looks like shit that was shoved into a sock, but believe me, it’s amazing. You get to douse it in booze and set it on fire. We’ll do that after we make some headway through the rest of this. Eat up!” he cries, and the team wastes no time in decimating the feast.

This is the first time they have had Christmas dinner together, and for some it is the first time they’ve had Christmas dinner ever. Peter is there, of course, because Deadpool refuses to leave him out of anything. His tentative cries of “But I’m Jewish” are ignored entirely.

This time Deadpool has brought along someone new. None of them recognize her. She is elderly, dark skinned, and grumbling angrily to herself.

“Introduce us to your friend,” Bucky says to Deadpool, nodding at the woman.

“Not my friend,” says Deadpool. “She’s the thorn in my ass, and she wouldn’t let me leave her behind tonight.”

“You’ve been cooking for days and you weren’t going to give me anything,” she says angrily. “I’d cry elder abuse, but frankly you razed that line to the ground with napalm when you locked me in a closet full of knives.”

“She has no idea what she’s talking about, she has dementia,” Wade says to the team, cocking his head sadly and shaking it.

“Ma’am?” Steve asks, concerned.

“I don’t need help from you, goody two shoes. I’ll kill myself before I accept pity from the care bear patrol.” She spits on the floor and then stuffs her mouth with macaroni and cheese.

“Don’t take it personally, she hates everyone,” Deadpool says to Steve. Steve just nods and looks at Bucky, whose eyes are sparkling with ill-concealed mirth.

“Guess not everyone falls prey to the Rogers charm,” he says, before stuffing another roll in his mouth.

They’re still tired and covered with detritus from the battle they fought earlier, but they are together, eating good food, and the mood lifts with every bite. Tony opens some really good champagne, and then the night really starts rollin’.

Once everyone is feeling full and fuzzy, Peter brings out _Cards Against Humanity: Avengers Edition_ , and they eat dessert (Christmas pudding is the best thing in the world, they all agree) and drink the last magnum of champagne while dying of laughter.

“Captain America’s biggest weakness is--”

“Cute boys,” says Natasha, throwing down her card with a smirk.

“Full frontal nudity,” says Tony.

“A cat video so cute that your eyes roll back and your spine slides out your anus,” says Bucky.

That one wins and Bucky grins triumphantly, leaning over and grabbing Steve for a kiss that is returned quite enthusiastically. They never kiss in front of people.

“Are they actually drunk?” Sam asks Natasha, wide eyed.

“I think they’re drunk,” Natasha says, grinning.

It’s a beautiful night.

At some point it starts snowing, so they wander outside to watch. Because they don’t want to leave Wanda or Peter out of anything they’ve taken to singing pop songs instead of Christmas carols, so someone starts singing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by _Tears for Fears_ and the rest of them join in quietly.

Steve starts crying silently and the team gathers around him, placing hands on his back if they can’t get near enough to get their arms around him. They’re all feeling fragile, but everyone knows today has been the hardest on Steve.

“You can’t measure success by the lives you save, Steve,” Deadpool says quietly. They all turn to look at him where he’s standing a little ways apart with his hostile guest (that still hasn’t been introduced). “If you do, then the average rate of success is so low you might as well give up. You have to measure success by the lives you _try_ to save, and you tried to save everyone today. Even people that didn’t deserve to be saved. I don’t believe in god, but… there is no god in any universe that can look at what you tried to do and not see the effort as worthy. I know it still sucks, but you have to let go of the guilt. You believe that only god is allowed to judge, right? That means you aren’t allowed to judge yourself, either.”

Steve swallows thickly, wipes his eyes, and stands a little taller. “Thank you, Wade.”

Deadpool leaves with the little old lady and Peter, and the rest of them wander back inside to clean up the mess from Christmas dinner. The presents are still missing, which sucks, because they were all looking forward to getting something special. But they settle back on the couches, under blankets, and silently decide to spend the rest of the night together. Someone asks Friday to play an episode of _Welcome to Nightvale_ , and they all settle in to listen to something benignly weird.

They have had nights like this before. Nights that came after bad days, nights where the levity was forced and manic, a desperate unspoken plea to forget the horror of what came before.  They have had better nights and worse nights, but these things can only be gauged in retrospect. Tonight is the night they are having.

They drift off to sleep after only one episode. The last thing any of them remembers hearing is the calm and hypnotic cadence of Cecil Baldwin’s voice, saying:

“Sleep heavily and know that I am here with you now. The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first and settles in as the gentle present. This now, this us? We can cope with that. We can do this together. You and I, drowsily, but comfortably _.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tradition in my family has always been to have the big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve so that Christmas Day can be spent just being lazy and around each other. Also we open presents from each other on Christmas Eve, and presents from Santa on Christmas Day.
> 
> The menu covers a wide swath of America, and a teeny bit of UK/Ireland. Tamales, tortillas, and chile is traditional fare in my family (we're from New Mexico, so the Southwest), while the oysters are something that is more common back in the Northeast. Mac'n'cheese, greens, and cornbread is more southern, although sometimes my family has greens and mac'n'cheese. We've never had oysters. Christmas Pudding is something I was only exposed to when I started spending holidays with my SO in Ireland (many, many years ago)--imagine eating an angel that's been topped with brandy and lit on fire, and served with additional brandy butter on the side. Mmmff.
> 
> I'm explaining all this because not everyone celebrates Christmas and there are lots of different traditions, so this might not match up with what your family does, and you might be wondering WTF.


	6. Sam

The holidays stress Sam out. It's because he wants to get people the perfect gift, but he hates guessing about this stuff--it's too much pressure. He just wants to ask them directly about what they want, but everyone in the house is such an asshole that that plan fails immediately. Even Natasha is making things hard for him.

Bucky is impossible to shop for because he doesn’t ask for anything, while Steve is hard to shop for because he delights in trolling his teammates by asking for things that he obviously doesn’t want, or things that are impossible to get.

“I want a gold toilet,” Steve says to Tony when asked. “Encrusted with rubies and emeralds.”

“Gift card it is,” Tony says, wiggling finger guns in Steve’s direction.

Sam corners Steve shortly after that.

“I want a salt water taffy sculpture of the Statue of Liberty,” he tells Sam. “1:1 ratio.”

“Come on, man,” Sam says, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

Natasha asks Steve while they decorate cookies.

“Stripper cake,” he tells her.

“Be careful Steve, because I will call your bluff,” Natasha says.

“In that case, I want to get drunk,” Steve says primly. Natasha rolls her eyes.

Bucky and Peter have their own plan that they aren’t letting anyone else get in on, which pisses Sam off even more. Doesn’t help that Peter already has a lead on Bucky’s present that he’s being infuriatingly secretive about.

“Why do you hate me, Pete?” Sam whines.

“I don’t hate you,” Pete says, helpfully thwipping Sam up to the top of a building so he doesn’t get steam rolled by the stampede of genetically modified animals that are being herded their way by the baddie of the week. “Just not gonna let you piggy back on my good idea. I worked too hard, and I don’t even celebrate this holiday.”

“Which is why you should help me out,” Sam insists.

“Get your own brilliant idea,” Pete says, webbing up a wildebeest that has six legs.

Natasha is also at a loss as to what to get Steve and seems uncharacteristically distraught.

Sam cares about getting the perfect present for everyone mainly because he’s competitive. For the most part Natasha is the same way, but with Steve…

“It’s different with Steve. He was there for me through a really hard time in my life. He trusted me when I didn’t trust myself, and he liked me when I didn’t like myself. I really want to get him something that he’ll like,” she says one night, cuddled up against Sam’s side.

The dating thing has been progressing satisfactorily for both of them, and Sam is feeling more content than he can ever remember being. They aren’t perfect, but they’re pretty much perfect for each other; their flaws and quirks overlap or join up in complementary ways.

He turns his head and kisses her forehead. “You’re the smartest woman I know. You’ll figure it out, Batman. Meanwhile, I’m stuck on _everyone_. I haven’t cared about presents for other people in such a long time, I’m out of practice…”

“You stuck on my present too? I can give you hints,” Natasha says suggestively, running her hands down his body in a way that lights up his nerve endings pleasantly.

“Nah, I know exactly what to get you. What's your ring size? Do you like diamonds?” Sam asks.

Natasha freezes, then pulls her hands back. “Don’t tease me.”

“Not teasing. Although, I am teasing about the diamond part. I’m not supporting the diamond industry, but I don’t think you’ll disagree with that.” Sam grabs her hand and pulls it up to rest on his chest. “You look upset. Talk to me, Nat.”

“Fucking each other is one thing, but you’re talking about…”

“This isn’t just fucking, though, is it? Is it?” Sam asks, eyes widening in fear. “Please tell me this isn’t just fucking.”

“No, no it’s more than that for me, but you can’t tell me that you're really... _invested_ in me like that.”

“Oh? Can’t I?” Sam says, getting a little angry. “You think that you’re just a fling for me?”

“How could I be more?” Natasha asks, sitting up and pulling away.

“I love you,” Sam says, his heart aching. He knows that Natasha is insecure, but how can she doubt him so completely?

Natasha looks like she’s been punched.

“Do you love me?” Sam asks, and the desperation in his voice terrifies him. She has so much power and for the first time Sam wonders if that’s a good thing.

Natasha holds his hand gently. “I love you, but I can’t give you the life you want. I’m not the kind of person that you should marry. I won’t let you make that mistake, so don’t propose to me, because I will end this before I let you throw that away on me.”

Sam blinks at her, thoughts like static in his mind, indefinite and hazy. It lasts for a few seconds before his mind comes back online.

“We’re going to couples therapy,” he says.

It’s not what Natasha is expecting. “What?”

“We need couples therapy. If you don’t want to get married I can respect that and I won’t push the matter, but if you’re saying no because you don't think you deserve it, we need to talk about that. We're in a relationship though, and I can't be your therapist. I can't be impartial. We need help with this,” he says.

“You mean _I_ need help,” Natasha clarifies, frowning.

“I need help too. We need help together. Please, I need you.”

Natasha closes her eyes and sighs. “I’ve fought monsters and aliens and gods, and yet you are the most terrifying thing I’ve ever faced. Yes, I’ll go with you to therapy.”

They start sleeping separately again while they figure this out, and it hurts so much. But Sam doesn’t want to scare Natasha.

Steve senses that something is up, so he takes Sam out for brunch, just the two of them.

“Remember that time we tried to make croissants?” Steve asks, putting jam on his croissant.

“Oh god,” Sam says, sipping his blisteringly hot coffee. It’s good, the pain and bitterness. “We had to put a ban on trying to cook French cuisine after that.”

“I grew up during the depression and I’ve never tasted anything that bad before,” Steve says, laughing ruefully.

Sam points a finger at him. “Your problem is that you try to run before you walk.”

“Tony understands me,” Steve says a little petulantly.

Sam rolls his eyes.

They don’t talk about what’s happening with him and Natasha in detail, but they talk around it enough that Sam knows that Steve knows. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but he needs support.

“You and Bucky,” Sam begins. Steve raises an eyebrow, but nods for Sam to ask his question. “Bucky and Natasha went through very similar situations. How… why does Bucky trust you?”

Steve runs a thumb across his bottom lip thoughtfully. “First, I knew Buck back before all that stuff happened. Second, Buck was an adult when that stuff happened to him; he knew that he was more than his programming, because he had twenty-some-odd years of proof. Nat had all that stuff happen to her when she was a kid. There has never been a point in her life where she could trust herself, so it’s very difficult for her to trust anyone else.”

“I feel like I should know that and understand it, but it’s so hard,” Sam says.

“It’s worth it though,” Steve says. “I’ve never seen you happier than when you’re with her.”

“I think she’s going to break up with me,” Sam says.

“What will you do if she does?”

Sam doesn’t know.

 He’s supposed to go stay with Violet for the holidays, but things don’t work out. He and Natasha are still weird around each other, so it’s shaping up to be a miserable holiday. Wade wakes them up too early on Christmas morning, which is the final nail in the bullshit coffin. Sam is feeling very grumpy.

“Next up is Sam,” Wade declares and starts pulling presents out of the bag.

Sam actually forgot that people were going to get him presents, he was so focused on getting everyone else something. He blinks in sleepy astonishment as Wade hands him a gift from Steve.

When Steve and Sam first started searching for Bucky they went on what was basically a year long road trip. They didn’t know each other all that well, although the trust between them was already unshakable. Sam doesn’t think he’s ever had a friendship like that with anyone—one where he was willing to die for them before he even knew what their favorite color was. Steve inspires that sort of immediate loyalty though, and not just because of his Captain America persona.

So, with the interest of getting to know Steve better, Sam packed up his best ice breaking kit. A decades old, water stained, dog-eared “1,000 Dead Baby Jokes” book that he got when he was ten years old, a copy of “Weird U.S.” to help them find the weirdest attractions in each State, a ratty book of road trip games that he picked up for a penny at a garage sale, and a couple books of Mad Libs.

It had been a rough time for Steve, and frankly a rough time for Sam as well, but as soon as Sam broke out the Mad Libs the mood lifted. They filled both books of Mad Libs and Sam had to buy more. Luckily they were pretty common at the rest stops they tended to stop at.

Sam unwraps Steve’s gift and blinks down at a giant Mad Lib compendium. He looks up at Steve, feeling strangely misty eyed. Maybe because of what’s happening with Natasha, maybe because it’s too fucking early in the morning, but he clutches at the Mad Libs book and tries not to cry.

“I think we need a road trip,” Steve says, and Sam nods, too close to tears to even say thank you.

"We wanted to go on a road trip before it was cool," says Wanda, waspishly.

Next Wade hands Sam a gift from Bucky. It’s very weirdly shaped and poorly wrapped. It looks like a steering wheel. Sam opens it cautiously and discovers that…

It actually _is_ a steering wheel.

“What the hell, Buck?” Sam asks, turning to stare at Bucky whose face is red with barely suppressed laughter.

“I wanted to apologize for that time I ripped the wheel out of your car. I thought I could start by replacing it,” he says, voice strained.

Sam starts laughing, which starts Bucky laughing, which starts everyone laughing.

“You son of a bitch,” Sam wheezes, reaching out a hand to grab Bucky’s shoulder. “You realize you totaled my _entire_ car, right?”

“I did?” Bucky says, blinking innocently. “Well then, I guess I better replace the whole car. Here,” he says, tossing Sam a key.

“Ferrari?” Sam says, slightly hysterically.

“Got too much money ever since they gave me my back pay and pension,” Bucky says. “Figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“I think I’m in love with you,” Sam says. He gets up and kisses Bucky directly on the mouth, then sits back down and enjoys the look of shock on Bucky’s face.

Steve raises an eyebrow, but looks more amused than anything else.

“Not made of money, huh?” Wanda says, smacking Bucky's arm and looking less than impressed.

Sam gets the massage coupon from Wanda and the outrageous Amazon gift card from Tony. They’re not sentimental gifts, but Wanda and Tony are not sentimental. He knows they love him, though, because they got him anything at all.

Peter gives him a comic book. Not just _any_ comic book though.

“Oh my god…” Sam says, hand coming up to cover his mouth. It’s a Captain America comic book, but it’s _him_ on the cover.

“They released the first issue a month ago, but I know you don’t really pay attention to comics and stuff. I thought you would like this, though,” Peter says, shrugging a little.

Sam is speechless again, blindly reaching out an arm to beckon Peter over for a hug.

Vision has donated $5000 to an organization that helps rehabilitate veterans who were wounded in action. Sam insists on giving Vision a hug as well, even though it makes Vision visibly uncomfortable.

T’challa gives him a small book of poetry. It’s a strange gift from a strange man. They don’t know each other so well, but they trust each other in a fight, so the gesture is appreciated. “Thank you,” he says, holding the book close. The cover is leather, well worn. The pages inside are old and yellow and smell faintly of vanilla.

“They are important poems of my people. I don’t believe you speak Wakandan, but I would like to teach you,” T’challa says.

Sam is taken aback. “I would like that,” he says honestly.

Finally, Wade reaches into the bag to retrieve Natasha’s gift.

It’s a small ring box.

“Nat,” he says, voice shaking despite his best efforts.

Natasha takes the box out of his hand, opens it up, and kneels in front of him. “I’m fucked up. I’ve killed so many people, for good and bad reasons. I’ve toppled governments and destabilized regions in order to appease the wills of those who thought they owned me, then turned around and killed them with no remorse. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m awake or asleep. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m remembering something that really happened, or if the programming is kicking in again. I’m dangerous, I’ll always be dangerous. It’s probably never going to be safe for us to adopt children. I’m not going to die peacefully. I’m scared of you, but I want you, and if you really want me then… then I’m yours.”

“I want every part of you,” Sam says breathlessly. “I want all of it.”

Their kiss is tear stained, shaky from adrenaline and relief. Natasha slips the ring onto his finger and beams up at him.

The room erupts into cheers, tears, back slaps, laughter, and hugging. It’s a mess and it’s perfect.

Wade fishes around in the bag and pulls out a bottle of champagne. “My gift,” he says happily, popping the bottle open. He reaches inside the bag again and retrieves champagne glass after champagne glass, until everyone in the room holds one. “To Sam and Natasha, and true love,” Wade says, lifting a glass.

They all drink to that.

Sam curls around Natasha and fidgets happily with the ring on his finger. It's a wide silver band with a deep green stone in the center. It's beautiful, the same color as her eyes.

"I love you," he says quietly as the team babble excitedly about weddings.

"I love you," she repeats, kissing him gently.

Their attention drifts back to the team as Tony sets down his glass with an air of determination. “I want to look at that bag,” he says darkly.

“Oh, leave it alone and enjoy your champagne,” Wanda says happily, kissing him on the cheek.

 “Okay, okay,” Wade says. “I still have more presents to give out! Next up is—“


	7. The Nutcracker

Natasha has had lovers before, but she’s never experienced this strange limbo that happens after a non-fight, which is what she is calling the benign yet panic-inducing disagreement they had after Sam decided to move way too fast. Usually, when things go south there are bullets and knives, and one time there was poison. With Sam there’s sleeping apart and staring at each other with a mixture of longing and pain. It’s worse than the more violent options, somehow. She wishes she could just stab her way out of this, but then she’d have to stab Sam, and that’s worse.

The tickets for the Nutcracker that she got for her birthday sit on her dresser. She was supposed to go with Sam, but right now the thought of going on a date with him makes her feel like she’s drowning. She doesn’t phrase it like that when she tells him she doesn’t think they should go together, but Sam understands that she’s feeling overwhelmed still.

“It’s okay, Nat,” he says, smiling sadly.  

She still really wants to go with someone though, she doesn’t think she can face the ballet on her own yet, so in a move that she’ll never quite understand she invites the opposite of Sam Wilson, which is—

“Wade Wilson reporting for duty!” Wade says, flailing his arm around in a flowery approximation of a salute.

He’s wearing his Deadpool mask and a (surprisingly well tailored) tuxedo. He compensates for this modicum of taste by wearing a bootleg Spider-man tie, where Spider-man is crudely drawn and spelled “Spoderman”.

Natasha is wearing a long and lacy pale pink dress. It is modest, innocent, a departure from what she usually enjoys wearing (tight, black, and devastating). This night is not about seduction or appearances, this is about confirming her love of ballet and reclaiming it for herself.

“Best behavior or I confiscate your testicles,” she says, pulling out a sharp knife from her handbag to flash at him.

He rolls his eyes (how he manages to convey that while wearing a mask that completely hides his features is a mystery. It must be a form of magic). “One night, just one night without a threat to my balls is all I ask.”

“We’re going to The Nutcracker,” Natasha reminds him.

Wade sticks his elbow out and Natasha gingerly places her hand on the crook of his arm. “M’lady,” he says with heavy irony, except it sounds like he’s saying ‘malady’. He tips an invisible hat and Natasha can tell that he’s imagining a fedora. It’s almost amusing.

Tony is letting them use his limo, which is pretty awesome. Natasha is the queen of playing it cool, what with the master spy training, but inside she’s always excited when she gets to ride in a limo. There’s something special about it.

But Wade is unrestrained in his excitement, poking his head out the roof and screaming at the top of his lungs, bouncing and sliding on the leather seats, stealing all the mini-champagne bottles, and generally being a 6’2” man child. After a while Natasha cracks and starts giggling, which spurs him on.

“Come on, get up here and scream with me,” he says, holding out a gloved hand to her.

She hesitates, but grabs his hand finally and allows herself to be hauled up beside him. The night air is horrifically cold, yet exhilarating. They both scream as loudly as they can, for as long as they can, and Natasha doesn’t care that the wind is ruining her hair. It’s odd, not caring about appearances for once.

They arrive at the theater and are ushered to their box seats (which are very nice). An usher brings by complementary chocolates and champagne. It’s supposed to be romantic, because Natasha was supposed to be here with Sam. She winces internally.

Wade doesn’t notice any awkwardness though, and he hauls the bottom of his mask up high enough to shove a chocolate into his mouth, chasing it with a sip of the champagne and gagging. “This tastes like fizzy pee!”

Natasha snorts. “Bet this is the good stuff, the thousands of dollars per bottle good stuff. It’s on Tony’s dime.”

Wade tries another sip, and gags again. “Pee-pee.” He keeps drinking it though.

His face is so badly scarred, but Natasha studiously prevents herself from feeling sympathy or pity, or even curiosity. That is the secret to being unreadable, invisible, undetectable. If you are blank on the inside, you are blank on the outside. Tabula Rasa. She wouldn’t want Wade to be uncomfortable, nor would she want him to know what she was thinking.

“It’s always shifting,” Wade says, sipping at his Fizzy Pee.

“What?” Natasha says, raising an eyebrow.

“The scars on my face. All over my body, really. Sores are always opening up and closing. It hurts, all the time. And it’s gross. They’re always shifting, it never looks the same twice. Not that anyone else would be able to see the difference, but I can.”

Natasha wonders if she’s losing her edge since he was able to read her train of thought so well.

“It’s just that people always want to know stuff when they see it,” he says. It seems like an invitation so Natasha shifts in her seat minutely to look closer at him.

“They look like acid burns,” she says without inflection.

“They feel like it sometimes. It’s the cancer, though. Damage done by anything else heals in a day or so.”

The lights dim and they fall silent, Natasha holding her breath as the first notes of the overture begin playing, Wade sipping delicately and every now and then gagging silently.

It’s beautiful and painful. Memories that aren’t her own dance on the stage before her eyes, weaving in and out between the other dancers on the stage, but for once she isn’t afraid of it. She allows herself to feel the pain and move past it, through it. By the final scene all she sees is what is there and nothing more.

An exorcism scored by Tchaikovsky. 

Natasha has conquered a demon and Wade has behaved like a civilized human being for the entire evening, so they reward themselves by each getting their own gigantic banana split at a 24 hour Diner.

“Why didn’t you take Captain Sexy tonight?” Wade asks through a mouthful of ice cream.

Natasha is always sparing with the truth, it’s a habit, but she decides that Wade has earned a certain level of intimacy. “He went a little fast for me, freaked me out, so I asked if we could slow it down, take a couple steps back for a while so I can catch my breath.”

Wade nods. “Good to ask for what you want.”

“It’s difficult for me. I’m not used to being able to set boundaries like this. Usually there are consequences when I say no.” That admission wasn’t as voluntary as the first one. She feels a little exposed, but Wade just continues nodding in understanding.

“It’s hard to have a healthy relationship when your defense mechanism is to hide all the time. How’d he take it?”

“Well enough,” she says, frowning down at her ice cream. “I hurt him, but this a littler hurt compared to what might happen if he gets too attached to me.”

Wade snorts. “Bullshit. He’s already that attached to you. It’s too late, horse is out the barn, climbed on a rocket ship, and headed to Mars.”

“How did they train a horse to pilot a rocket ship?” Natasha asks, smoothly steering the course of this conversation away from more dangerous waters.

“Carrots,” Wade says, but he isn’t as distractible as he usually is. “He’s in love with you, you’re in love with him. What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t want to break him,” Natasha says, surrendering to the topic. “I did so many bad things. I’m not… I don’t deserve…”

“You don’t deserve Sam?” Wade asks. Natasha nods. “That’s bullshit too,” Wade says, pointing a finger at her. “You don’t know if you’ll hurt him by moving forward. You can’t know. But you’ll definitely hurt him by going backwards. So you can’t make a move based on his feelings, cause the potential for pain lies in both directions. You have to move based on _your_ feelings. What do _you_ want? Don’t think about what he wants, don’t think about what you _deserve_. Think about what you _want._ ”

“Didn’t know you could double-major in Jackassery and Armchair Psychology,” Natasha says dryly, using humor to hide how off center she feels right now. Make decisions based on what she wants? She’s done it a few times, when it really mattered, but it’s so hard.

“I trained at Hopkins,” he says.

Natasha smirks. “Johns Hopkins has a school of Jackassery?”

“No, I’m talking about Frank Hopkins Jackassery College, in New Jersey. A very diverse faculty. Their campus is in a dumpster behind a Walmart. I learned how to tightrope walk from Professor Cityface, the first tenured pigeon professor in North America.”

It’s so stupid, so utterly stupid, but Natasha throws her head back and cackles. Wade keeps her laughing by deep throating his banana, and the waitress threatens to kick them out of they don’t settle down. They pay their bill quickly and leave.

The driver indulges their request to drive around a while before going back to the tower. They drink the tiny bottles of champagne that Wade stole and stuffed in his pockets before the play. They are body temperature now, and it really is like drinking pee now. Still, they keep drinking, cracking each other up with the faces they make.

Wade spots a playground and screams at the driver to stop. They are both pleasantly drunk by now, loopy and relaxed, and they gravitate to the swings where they spend twenty minutes seeing who can swing higher and jump off farther.

It’s bitterly cold, well past midnight, but Natasha is wide awake and alive in a way she hasn’t ever really allowed herself to be. She’s terrified of living the way she wants, because she’s certain that if she takes responsibility for steering herself the latent programming will kick in and she’ll inadvertently fulfill some dark, sinister mission that the Red Room planted in her brain. She ties herself to causes that are bigger, men who seem to see farther, in an attempt to escape that fate.

Not because she wants to, because she thinks she should, and look at what happened. She defected and ended up serving Hydra almost immediately.

She thinks about what she wants.

She wants to eat ice cream and get drunk with her friends.

She wants to watch ballet and bad movies.

She wants to go streaking and paint rude graffiti on police cars.

She wants Sam.

When she thinks about it, it’s really hard to see how the Red Room would benefit from these things. How would the Red Room benefit from Natasha having fun and making a fool of herself with Wade? How could they benefit from her loving a good person?

“I thought the best way to get revenge and pay my debts was with bullets and knives. I think I want to try getting revenge with love and ice cream instead. At least for a while,” Natasha says, pensively.

Wade smiles behind his mask. “Living well is always the best revenge. Also acid enemas.”

He helps her stand up and they walk back to the limo together, swaying slightly and leaning on each other like wounded soldiers leaving the battlefield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cityface is a ref to the main character of Gunnerkrigg Court, which is Cityface the Pigeon.


	8. Natasha

Like Steve and Bucky, Natasha finds it very difficult to ask for what she wants, or to want something in the first place.

She remembers reading about a concept known as ‘learned helplessness’. One of the early experiments that demonstrated this concept involved an electrified floor and dogs, and really it was a horrible thing to read. Even Natasha, who has witnessed so much pain, shied away from the mental image.

The experiment was conducted on three groups of dogs; the first group of dogs never experienced any pain, the second group of dogs were shocked but had a lever available that they could press to end the pain, and the third group of dogs had no lever. No control over when the shocks ended.

During the second half of the experiment the dogs were placed into a different enclosure where one half of the floor was not electrified. All the dogs had to do was jump a small barrier to get to safety. Dogs in groups one and two started searching for relief as soon as they started experiencing pain, easily discovering that they could jump the small hurdle to get to safety. Dogs in group three never even tried, they just stayed there and endured the pain, because they knew there was no point in trying to escape it.

Sometimes Natasha feels like a dog from group three. There are so many situations in her life that she could avoid if she felt like it was possible. She knows that her mental barriers are easily leapt over, but there is always a part of her that says “Why even try?”

Christmas is an electrified floor for Natasha. She’s supposed to want things, she’s supposed to care about what other people want. The tension that this creates in her is nearly unbearable, especially when everyone around her is so reticent to actually ask for what they want. Really, none of them should be doing this, because nearly all of them are so damaged, so cynical. She wants to escape, she wants to say “I’m not playing this game” and leave, but instead she participates in the hollow play.

At first she mimics the others, playing coy when asked for what she wants. But then she goes to the Nutcracker with Wade and realizes with sudden clarity that it’s idiotic to play these games. She hates it, so the next morning she goes to each of her teammates, firmly refusing to panic because of what she is about to do.

First, she speaks with Steve. “I want you to draw this for my Christmas present,” she says, handing him a picture of the Bolshoi Theater.

He blinks rapidly in surprise, looking down at the picture. “Okay,” he says, taking the picture and walking away.

Natasha lets out a shaky breath. She asked for what she wanted and nothing bad happened.

 _I can do this_ , she thinks, and goes to find Tony.

“I want you to buy me tickets for _Swan Lake_ , for my Christmas Present,” Natasha says.

Tony beams at her. “Great idea! I was having a hard time figuring out what to get you. Thank you for helping me out, Tasha.”

She asked for what she wanted and she was thanked for it.

She finds Vision before she is ready to ask him for anything. They don’t really know each other well, they hardly spend time together unless Wanda is with them. Natasha finds herself saying “I want you to go to cooking lessons with me, for my Christmas present.”

Vision looks taken aback. “Would you not rather go with Wanda?”

“No, I want to go with you,” Natasha says. “I don’t know you as well as I’d like to. I think we would get to know each other better if we shared time apart from the team.”

Vision looks gratified, a small, pleased smile making his eyes twinkle. “I would like that. I would like to know you better. That would make me happy.”

She asked for what she wanted and she made someone happy.

It’s difficult to ask Bucky for anything. They’ve reached an unspoken agreement to move forward from their past, and are finally approaching the idea of a friendship. He was honest with her when she asked him what he wanted (it makes her sad to think that everyone assumes he’s just being a troll—Bucky really does just want an orange), and now it’s her turn to be open.

“For Christmas I want you to tell me what happened in Minsk. I can’t talk to you about it face to face, so write it in a letter,” she says. “Please.”

Bucky inhales sharply. “Wow, okay, we’re really gonna open that wound up?”

“If we’re going to be friends and work together, I need to know.”

“It was a long time ago, Tasha,” he says.

“You remember, though. Please. I’ll tell you why I was in Beijing, if you want,” she offers.

Bucky shakes his head. “I understand that you’re not ready to let everything go yet, but I am. I don’t need to know. I forgave you for everything so long ago Natasha, I really did. Even for Brazil.”

Natasha’s breath catches in her throat briefly, but that’s the only indication that she feels overwhelmed. “Thank you,” she says in a neutral voice, and then she leaves.

She asked for what she wanted and discovered that some of the red in her ledger had already been wiped clean without her knowledge. It’s at this point that she decides to stop. She’s been as brave as she can be, so she retreats to her room to convalesce.

With Wanda she doesn’t even need to ask for anything, and that is why Natasha loves Wanda. Everything is simple and straightforward between them.

She is unable to approach Sam about Christmas at all, even if she wanted to.

After everything that happens, after she almost loses Sam, after confronting herself, she sneaks out and buys him a ring on Christmas Eve.

Well, she breaks into a jeweler’s and leaves them the money and an apology note that will never lead back to her.

And he accepts, and really the morning can only get better from there.

She forgets that she will be getting other presents until Wade says “Okay, okay, I still have more presents to give out! Next up is Natasha!”

He pulls out the gift from Steve. She was expecting a small charcoal sketch, but Steve has painted the Bolshoi on a vast canvas (it really shouldn’t be able to fit in that bag), backlit by the setting sun. The colors are fiery red, bleeding upwards into the coldest blues. It isn’t photorealistic. It’s beyond that. It’s visceral, as though painted through the lens of her own memory, tinged with adoration and trepidation. There is love in the brush strokes—not love for the Bolshoi, but love for Natasha.

“Steve…” is all she can say.

Tony gets her the tickets to Swan Lake, Vision hands her a brochure for cooking lessons for them to look over together, and Bucky gives her the letter. Everything she asked for she got, every ounce of bravery she expended was rewarded.

Each gift is expected, and yet unexpected. Each gift says “ _We love you and we listen to you_.”

Peter gives her a beautiful scarf, T’challa and co. give her a spider pendant, and Clint sends her a novelty calendar of Mormon Missionary pinups (unfunny inside joke she refuses to explain to anyone), and these are appreciated too, of course.

But the four gifts she asked for and got are cradled close to her heart, important because of what they mean rather than what they are.

And then Sam’s gift.

“Now, I got this for you before you proposed to me, so… just ignore it,” Sam says, as Wade passes her a small ring box.

She opens it and inside is a ring that is topped by a lovingly detailed enamel reproduction of a slice of pepperoni pizza.

“It’s an anti-engagement ring,” Sam says, sounding miserable. “You didn’t… you were so upset, so I wanted to get you a ring that showed you I loved you and wanted to be with you forever, but without being so intense and scary.”

“Because pizza is amazing, and you want pizza all the time…” Natasha says, with perfect understanding.

“Yeah, exactly like that,” Sam says with a small smile.

And this gift, even though she didn’t ask for it, also says “ _I love you and I listen to you”_.

Natasha hands it to Sam. “Get on your knee and propose to me,” she demands.

“Oh, uh, okay,” says Sam, scrambling to obey. He gets on his knee, and suddenly his smile is so wide. It’s as wide as the sky, as warm as the sun. It’s freedom and forgiveness, and a love she never knew she could have. “Natasha, you are my best friend. I want your light and your dark, and all the dawns and twilights in between. Be my best friend forever.”

He slips the ring onto her finger and they kiss.

“I can’t believe I’m crying again,” says Steve, on the verge of actually wailing. Bucky looks a little misty eyed too, and he wraps an arm around Steve’s shoulder.

After everyone calms down again, Wade pulls the last gift out of the bag.

It’s a small sketch of a troop of young ballerinas, waiting in the wings at the Bolshoi. She recognizes each of them, and gasps. “It’s… it’s _us_. Where did you find this?”

“On a field trip,” Wade says mysteriously. “I thought you’d want it.”

“It was real,” she says, heart pounding so hard she can’t hear anything. “It was _real_. I was really _there_. I really danced at the Bolshoi, it wasn’t just a false memory.” She looks up at Wade. “How? How did you know it was me _? How_?” She realizes she’s slightly hysterical, but she doesn’t care. There is no way he recognized her in this picture, she looks nothing like this now.

“I’m Santa,” Wade says.

Natasha is up and across the room in an instant, knife pressed tightly against his throat. “You aren’t Santa. Who are you? How do you know me?”

“I don’t know you,” Wade says calmly. “Put the knife away and sit down, please.”

And it’s such a reasonable suggestion Natasha actually does it, even though she’s still reeling.

 _The Bolshoi was a real memory_.

“I can’t give details, but rest assured I rescued it from an owner that didn’t deserve it. They confirmed your identity, I just passed it along to you.”

It’s a lie, but Natasha decides to pretend to drop it for now. She will interrogate Wade thoroughly at a later date. For now, she gazes at the picture. All of those girls are dead now, except for her. But they were all real, once. A dream and a nightmare sits in her trembling hands.

She isn’t paying attention when Wade announces the next recipient.


	9. Oh Christmas Tree

Over the years Steve has become less uncomfortable with Tony’s money. It’s very convenient to have things like food taken care of, and Steve has been hungry too many times to resent having it in abundance. The medical care is also really nice, and having a home. He insists on buying his clothes, shoes, and art supplies, but he thinks that’s a very reasonable compromise considering how he felt about it all only three years ago.

Money makes things convenient, and for food, housing, and medical care that’s wonderful.

It’s not okay when it comes to the holidays and decorating.

“I don’t want a professional decorator,” Steve says firmly.

“Oh my god, come on!” Tony whines. “You’ve never complained before.”

“Yes, well, that was before being forced to do all this Christmas stuff. Now I’m in the holiday spirit. We aren’t hiring professional decorators to do the tree, we’re doing it ourselves.”

And that’s final, as far as Steve’s concerned.

Tony hires the decorator anyway, and Steve feels genuine anger in the pit of his stomach when he sees the beautiful tree in the common room. “We don’t have time to decorate it ourselves,” Tony explains.

Then the sirens start blaring and the team assembles, leaving Steve to stew in the common room. He hopes he develops superpowers (more super superpowers) like flame vision or something like that, so he can take the tree out. But nothing happens, and eventually he gets tired of feeling mad, so he wanders off into the kitchen to see if Tony has anything special set aside in the fridge. If so, Steve is going to throw it away.

Steve knows he’s being unreasonable. It’s his fault he didn’t explain himself properly. He didn’t tell Tony how important it actually was that they decorate the tree as a family. If he had, Tony might have listened, but Steve made it sound like he was being contrary for no reason. He knows this, but he’s still resentful, which makes him feel guilty, which spirals him into an anxiety and depression combo that lands him face first in an entire gallon of ice cream.

It was something he did with his mom, is all. They never had a big tree, but she’d get Mr. Krang to give her the smallest tree on the lot, the one that would probably never sell. He’d sell it at a discount, even though he always complained that Ma was hustling him. Made it seem like Ma was savvy, not begging for charity. Then Steve and his Ma would make paper snowflakes. If Steve was well enough he’d cut shapes out of old newspaper and paint ‘em so they looked like the pretty glass ornaments they couldn’t afford. It was nice though, just him and Ma. They’d finish decorating and Ma would step back and gaze admiringly at Steve’s ornaments.

“My Stevie’s the most talented boy in Brooklyn,” she’d say.

For a long time life was just too up in the air to think about Christmas, and then it was too sad to decorate the tree without Ma, but he’s discovered that he has a family again. It felt like it was the right time. Maybe next year he’ll be able to express himself properly.

He’s scraping the bottom of the ice cream tub when he hears an unfortunately familiar voice scream “Fuck!” He runs into the common room just in time to witness Wade, who was climbed to the top of the tree, topple the whole thing over and plummet to the ground with a horrific crash.

He rushes over to help Wade up to his feet. Glass is everywhere. Every single ornament on the tree has shattered. “Masterful,” Steve says, unable to feel completely sorry for the loss. “You got every single one.”

Wade whines a little, picking glass out of his butt. “Damn it, I just wanted to put this on top.”

It’s a mangled Barbie doll, painted red and black to match Wade’s uniform, with what appears to be dryer sheets stapled all around her body. “Is this supposed to be an angel?”

“No, it’s me!” Wade cries proudly. “Didn’t have any material to make a dress, so I stapled dryer sheets to her.”

“Very creative,” Steve says, handing it back to Wade. It’s distressingly sticky. “I guess we better clean this up. You know where the broom is?”

“Got it!” Wade cries, trotting off to the cleaning cupboard.

They sweep up the glass as well as they can, then Steve tries to straighten the tree back up, which is when he discovers that the tree has snapped in half. “Yup, Tony is definitely gonna notice this,” Steve says.

“Not if we make it look nice before they get back,” Wade says. “Come on, put up the short section, I’ll dispose of the bottom half.” Wade drags it outside to the porch, then dusts his hands off like ‘job well done’. “No one will notice it,” he says, confidently. “Now, do you have newspaper and paint?”

And for a moment Steve wonders if Wade really is Santa like he claims to be. How else could he be reading Steve’s mind like this? But the moment passes and he decides to believe that maybe other people grew up poor too.

The tree isn’t as small as the trees he used to have when he was a kid, even being broken in half it’s still taller. But it’s a manageable size. Steve and Wade spend a pleasant couple of hours making paper ornaments. Wade shows him how to fold origami cranes, and Steve shows Wade how to make paper garlands.

“My dad never let us have a tree,” Wade says cheerfully, folding a crane. “So I got some old newspapers that I didn’t think he’d notice missing, and I cut one into the shape of a tree. Painted it green and taped it up inside my closet. Made ornaments. He discovered it, of course. Beat me and then burned the tree, but I swore that I’d have a tree someday.”

If Steve wasn’t listening he’d never have known that Wade was talking about something so awful. It’s delivered in the tone of voice that Wade uses to rhapsodize about chimichangas or Spider-Man. It doesn’t fit the story, and Steve realizes that he’s actually pretty powerless. Bad things were happening to kids while he was sitting in the kitchen, eating ice cream and feeling sorry for himself that his Christmas tree was too pretty.

“Do you ever wonder what the point is?” Steve asks, looking down at the little star he’s making. “Why is everything so awful all the time? Is it supposed to make us better people, or does god just hate us?”

Wade shrugs. “Bad things happen. Good things happen. If there’s a point in there somewhere it’s probably about free will, or perspective, but fuck if I can understand any of that shit. I work hard enough trying not to get my prostate stimulated by bullets to give a fuck. If god’s trying to teach me a lesson, he should try using candy or sex next time. I learn faster when there’s candy or sex.”

Steve snorts.

When it’s all set up on the tree it doesn’t look half bad. Wade places the Barbie on top of the tree and steps back, hands on his hips. “Perfecto.”

“Thanks for helping me decorate,” Steve says.

Wade spins around, and even though his features are obscured by the ever present mask, Steve gets the impression that Wade looks surprised. “Uh, yeah! No problem!” Under his breath he says “play it cool Wilson.”

Steve smiles brightly. “You want some cocoa? I ate a gallon of ice cream, and now I need something warm.”

“Hell yes,” Wade says, following Steve into the kitchen.

When Wade finishes his cocoa he leaves, but not before shaking Steve’s hand furiously. “Can I tell everyone that we’re best friends now?”

“Do we have to come up with a complicated handshake?” Steve asks, anxiously.

“Nah, this is good,” Wade says, still shaking Steve’s hand.

Steve shrugs. “Fine, tell ‘em whatever you want.”

After Wade has vanished, Steve allows himself to check in on the team (he limits himself to three requests for an update, otherwise he’s checking every five minutes. Friday knows when he’ll need to be alerted to anything, he has to trust her.)

“Everything is wrapping up smoothly,” she reports. “Team will return in approximately one hour.”

Steve goes to his room with the intention of taking a nap, even though he knows he’s going to lie awake feeling anxious until Bucky walks through the door and kisses him.

Maybe it was the cocoa or the emotional exhaustion, but Steve actually falls asleep.

He’s woken when Bucky tries to kiss him gently. It’s probably supposed to be romantic, but Steve is a soldier suffering from PTSD, and discovering a looming shadow over his face is not conducive to romance. He punches Bucky in the stomach and has him pinned to the ground before he realizes it isn’t an assassin. Or, technically, not an assassin that’s trying to kill him at the moment.

“Oh my god,” Steve says, as Bucky dissolves into laughter. “It isn’t funny, I could have hurt you!”

“You did hurt me!” Bucky says, pointing to where his nose is starting to bleed. “That just makes it funnier.”

Steve is mortified, but Bucky just gazes at him affectionately. “Help me up, you lug,” he says, grabbing Steve’s hand and grunting a little as he goes vertical. “Gonna stop this bleeding, and then I’m gonna kiss you sillier than you already are.”

When Bucky has cleaned up and Steve has recovered some of his dignity, Bucky makes good on his promise and kisses Steve on the bed until he’s dizzy and breathless. “Bad day?” he asks.

“Nah, typical day,” Bucky says.

Steve kisses the back of Bucky’s hand. “You aren’t usually so… passionate, unless one of us had a bad day.”

“I saw the tree,” Bucky explains. “I figured you were probably remembering your Ma. I wish you’d waited to decorate until we got back so that you didn’t have to do it alone. It hurts, thinking about you decorating that tree by yourself.”

Bucky brushes his hair away from his forehead. It’s longer these days than it usually is. Steve is entertaining the idea of letting it grow out long. He wants to learn how to braid.

Steve smiles gently, remembering the afternoon. “Wade snuck in again and broke the tree. He helped me redecorate. It was actually his idea.”

Bucky starts laughing, rolling onto his back and drowning in the waves of desperate laughter. Tears start streaming down the side of his face before he’s able to control himself. “Please, please don’t tell Tony. He was so impressed with you for destroying the tree and decorating it the way you wanted to. I couldn’t bear to see him disappointed.”

Steve snorts. “I was tempted, but I ate all the ice cream instead. I was lucky Wade popped by to ruin everything.”

Bucky smiles at Steve fondly, but after a while his smile fades. “What do you think his angle is?”

“I don’t know. I wish I could believe that it was out of the goodness of his heart, but… I don’t trust him like that. This is too sudden. I don’t like how easily he bypasses Friday,” Steve says, frowning.

“Guess we’ll just wait it out and see.”

“Yeah.”

They kiss again, and Steve falls back to sleep with his head on Bucky’s chest. He tries not to think about the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lost my buffer two days ago. Writing these chapters when I get back from work and posting before going to sleep. Difficult, but interesting as a writing exercise. Trying to average 2k words per chapter and actually hitting that more often than not, and they're words that I'm mostly proud of.
> 
> Eye opening experience, to say the least. Learning a lot about my creative process.


	10. Peter

Peter is Jewish, okay? He went the whole nine yards, got the Bar Mitzvah done, observes the holy days with his aunt (more or less). Maybe he isn’t as devout as others, he’s not sure he even believes in god, but he is very firmly Jewish in his mind. He cares about his culture, even if he’s not always consistent.

So it’s annoying when Wade keeps dragging him along to these Christmas things. No, it’s not like anyone is trying to convert him or is being obnoxiously religious, but it’s still not something he’s comfortable with. While he knows all the Christmas traditions (because it’s impossible not to if you live in the US and turn on a TV after November) they aren’t _his_ traditions.

You don’t really mix Chanukah and Christmas, ‘cause it’s false to Judaism and disrespectful to Christianity.

But Peter goes along because it’s important to Wade for him to be there, for some reason.

“I don’t want Christmas presents,” he tells everyone. “I’ll give gifts, but I don’t want any.” It’s his compromise, and they all promise to respect this boundary.

Wanda is in the same boat, although she’s not as uncomfortable as he is. They bond a little over their mutual weirdness, two Jews in a sea of semi-secular Christians. They usually end up hanging back and watching as everyone else dives into the “holiday” proceedings.

“Holiday” as if it’s an all-encompassing term. Sometimes Chanukah can fall as far back as November, but people will still wish you a happy Chanukah around the 25th. He tries not to get his back up about it, he knows it’s well meant, but he can’t help thinking that if people really meant well then maybe they’d read up about his religion a little more.

Still, he can’t deny that the world is prettier around this time of year. He enjoys the trappings of Christmas, even though it makes him feel a little guilty. He enjoys the music; not the insipid pop songs, but the classic carols. He especially enjoys the music from _The Snowman_ and _A Charlie Brown Christmas_. Even _Nightmare Before Christmas_ is enjoyable.

But it’s not his religion and it’s not his holiday.

“Why is it so important to you that I go along with this Christmas thing you’re doing?” Peter asks Wade. “You know I’m uncomfortable with it.”

They’re having their typical late night food cart binge after a patrol, sat together side by side on top of a skyscraper. It’s bitterly cold, but the view is beautiful.

“I hate Christmas,” Wade confesses. “I hate it so much. It always meant yelling and pain in my family. But you make it easier for me. You always make things easier.”

“If you hate it then why are you doing this?” Peter asks, confused.

“I just have to. I can’t explain it.”

Peter frowns. It’s never good when Wade starts getting cagey. “What’s going on, Wade?”

Wade sighs, breath curling out in a white cloud. “Sometimes… sometimes I think that maybe if I work hard enough I can become a real boy. You know? Maybe, if I prove I’m good enough, if I jump through enough hoops, I’ll be taken seriously. People will start looking up to me, and I won’t be ‘that guy’, the one that everyone rolls their eyes at when he shows up.”

“And making everyone celebrate Christmas is the way to do that?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. The movies make it seem like if all these things happen, then you can get a Christmas miracle at the end. I guess I wanted a miracle. It sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”

“Nah, it sounds human,” Peter says. “I get the appeal of Christmas, you know. I’m not blind. It’s pretty, and they make it seem like it’s about family and love and kindness. Who doesn’t want to celebrate those things? That’s not what Christmas is about though, not really. It’s about the incarnation of God, and the beginning of the Christian religion. I can’t celebrate Christmas, because it’s… like, do you know what Chanukah is about?”

Wade shakes his head. “Not really. Something about candles.”

“Way back when, the Seleucid empire tried to take our religion from us. They took our temple and dedicated it to Zeus, they sacrificed pigs on our altar, and banned circumcision. I don’t know how much you know about my religion, but let’s just say that was a ‘pretty big deal’. So we fought back and reclaimed our temple, but we only had enough sacred oil to light the menorah for one night. That one night stretched to eight, which gave us enough time to get more sacred oil. That’s the abridged version, there’s more to it than that, but Chanukah is about reclaiming our temple and affirming our faith. The Jewish faith. No matter where we go in the world we have to protect it because sometimes… a lot of times it’s the only thing we have.”

Wade nods. “Makes sense. You know I don’t care about the Christ part of this, right? I just want… I don’t know what I want, but I want it, and I want you there.”

Peter pats Wade’s shoulder. “If you need me I’ll be there, because you are my friend. I just want you to understand what you’re asking me for. It’s not as straightforward as you think.”

Wade hugs him uncomfortably close and Peter makes a token protest, but really he doesn’t mind. Sometimes it makes his heart hurt when he thinks about how much Wade seems to look up to him, so what is a hug if it makes Wade feel better?

He goes along with the rest of the shenanigans in a slightly better mood, telling himself that it’s a good deed for a friend. Wade, to his credit, tones down on the exclusively Christmassy things and tries to include him and Wanda more. Wade even gets a Menorah and tries his hand at the Chankah thing. It’s a disaster, for the most part, but it’s sweet. Everyone is really enthusiastic about it, which makes Peter feel loved. Overall he’s happy.

He’s less happy when Wade rings his phone on Christmas morning, before the sun’s even come up. “Come on buddy! We gotta head over to the compound. It’s the big day!”

Peter groans. “I loathe you. I loathe you more than I loathe, uh… crabs. My brain isn’t working. Bye bye. Going back to sleepy sleep now.”

“Get up and meet me at our usual spot. Don’t make me burn down New York to find you.” Wade hangs up.

 Peter groans and gets sort of dressed. He puts his mask on, at least. It’s dark outside, no one’s going to notice if he’s wearing his pajama pants, right?

Wade hands him a cup of coffee when he swings down to join him on the street. “Nice pants.”

“Shut up. I hate you.”

“Come on. My friend Andrew is letting us borrow his truck so we can arrive to the compound in comfort.”

The truck smells like manure and the heater is broken. “Just for my edification, what would you classify as a ride in _dis_ comfort?”

“Unicycle with no seat,” Wade says.

Peter spends the rest of the ride trying not to imagine that.

Now, the rest of the team have asked Peter how Wade always manages to break into the compound since he’s always arriving with Wade. The problem is that Wade makes Peter stay behind until whatever he’s doing is finished. Peter should probably be pushier about trying to stop Wade from doing that, but Wade is to be trusted until he proves he isn’t worthy of it. No one is really upset by it anymore, anyway. Peter stays behind in the manure-mobile for five minutes while Wade does whatever it is he does.

Soon enough Wade is dragging him inside the compound and setting him up next to a roaring fire. “Try to get warmth back in those spidey-limbs. Don’t want my buddy to die of frost bite.”

He doesn’t want to feel nice feelings about Wade, considering how this miserable start to a morning is his fault, but dang it all if his heart isn’t melting all the same. Wade is like a big, stinky dog. He's stinky, he ruins everything, but you love him anyway because you can't not.

Peter is feeling toasty and in a better mood by the time everyone arrives, and he sits back to enjoy watching as everyone gets their gifts.

Even though he’s asked for nothing ( _demanded_ nothing, damn it), Wanda still gives him the massage coupon (“I’m allowed, we’re both Jewish so it cancels out”), Tony still gives him the amazon gift card (“Shut up and take the card, kid”), and Wade still pulls something out of the bag for him.

“God damn it, Wade,” Peter sighs, accepting the huge box.

It’s wrapped in blue and silver and it is very pretty. Peter opens it.

There’s only a piece of folded printer paper inside. Wade has drawn himself (with a helpful ‘Deadpool’ scrawled in crayon over it) and Spider-man fighting ninjas together. So Peter opens it and reads it.

_Dear Spider-man,_

_Thank you for being a friend. Travel down the road and back again. Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant._

_And if you threw a party, invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say,_

_Thank you for being a friend._

_-Love Wade_

He looks up at Wade, who quickly arranges his hands into a little hand-heart.

“You plagiarized this,” he says, waving the card at Wade.

“But I meant it from the heart,” Wade says.

Peter starts laughing and tackles Wade, hugging him tightly. “Thank you for being a friend, Wade.”

As Peter sits back and lets the next person have their turn, he thinks about the past twenty-five days and all that they’ve endured together. He thinks about the nature of faith and family, and loyalty. Christmas is still firmly _not his thing_ , because it can’t be. Peter believes in respect above all things, so he wants to respect his religion and all other religions. Part of that, for him, is keeping things distinct from each other.

But this right here doesn’t feel wrong to him. It doesn’t feel like Christmas, even. It feels like everyone’s birthdays just happened to fall on the same day, maybe. It’s a celebration of each other and their weird group relationship that falls somewhere between family and cult.

If he had to call it something he’d call it Wademas, probably. A holiday for the weird, scary, hectic, loud, funny, appalling, dangerous, thrilling, and stupid. Yup, he’s definitely calling it Wademas.

After the last gift is opened, after they toast each other, Wade and Peter drive back to town in the manure-mobile.

"This was really weird, and it made me uncomfortable pretty much constantly, but... thank you for including me anyway. I'm glad I got to witness the insanity," Peter says.

"It wouldn't have been right to not have you there," Wade says. "I don't have a lot of friends. I need to keep them."

"Well, you have Andrew and his stinky truck," Peter says, grimacing.

Wade laughs. "Oh Andrew. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew."

The glove compartment pops open when they hit a pothole, and the contents come spilling out. The registration belongs to someone named Jorge.

"Did you steal this car?" Peter asks, calm before the storm.

"Uh..."

Peter spends the rest of the ride back to town yelling at Wade. 

It's a very merry Wademas indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When my Nana died we discovered that our family had been Jewish up until her mother's generation. They attempted to hide it in a dangerous religious/political climate by converting to Catholicism, but they still spoke the Spanish equivalent of Yiddish. They couldn't hide their language, so they didn't teach it to their children. Everyone in her generation did the same thing, and now the language is almost dead.
> 
> She never told us anything, and we lost so much of our history because of fear. I lost so much of my heritage because of fear. Fuck fear and fuck fascism.
> 
> I was never really religious to begin with, so I don't know a lot about any religion, but after I learned my Nana had been Jewish, that we had been Jewish, I went to a Rabbi and tried to learn what I could. My representation of the Jewish perspective on Christmas is an estimation, my representation of the Jewish faith and Chanukah is a dedicated attempt at accuracy, but I am obviously ignorant. 
> 
> It is important to me that Peter is Jewish. I firmly believe (and I'm not the only one who believes) that he is Jewish. I won't pretend that I've even come close to reading every Spider-Man comic, so I don't know if it's cannon. But it is my firm belief, and this is my story. If I have misrepresented anything, or done a poor job, please let me know. I will do what I can to fix it, and I will make a note on the next chapter about where I went wrong so that others may be educated along with me. 
> 
> And I want it to be understood that I don't believe Peter's participation in Wademas is at heart a betrayal of himself or his faith. He is helping a friend who is experiencing something of a crisis. 
> 
> Not everyone feels uncomfortable being Jewish and participating in some of the Christmas things that are more secular (like Santa and such), but some are, and in my story Peter is. I did this because I wanted to show someone navigating a friendship with people from another culture--some things don't line up, sometimes there are conflicts, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be friends with them. The team worked together to try to find a way to compromise and make something that they could celebrate together.
> 
> Differences, the unknown, and the unfamiliar make us uncomfortable, but discomfort is a sign that we are growing. Love people. Try to understand them. Find ways to meet them halfway.


	11. The Grinch who stole my shit is gonna get a cap in his ass

The night before Christmas Eve, the night that it all begins, the presents go missing.

None of them notice as they run to gear up for the fight they each knew was coming. After a certain point, when you’ve done this thing as long as they have, you develop a sense. You can smell it in the air, and each of them agrees that it’s been reeking for days. All those reports of bad dreams, all the gruesome displays at the shopping centers.

Finally the curtain rises, and they go to meet their fate like they always do.

Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am incapable of keeping things pleasant. This marks the beginning of part two, where things are going to get darker. I promise the ending will find our heroes in the light again.


	12. Vision

Vision is interested in gift giving as it relates to communication and self-expression. He is interested in the role that perspective takes in making decisions about what to get for whom.

The things we give have meaning in context—for example, giving lingerie to an established significant other is acceptable, while giving lingerie to a coworker is not. The gift didn’t change, but the relationship did. But even then, some people are uncomfortable with being given lingerie even in the context of a sexual relationship. Giving lingerie says something different to each person you consider the gift for.

Not that he’s considering buying anyone lingerie, but it was what came to mind as he thought about it. Possibly because he was walking through the lingerie section in Macy’s. Very strange items, lace and satin coverings designed to titillate and accentuate. He does not understand the appeal, he does not have those hormones. Any attraction he feels is purely psychological.

Vision tries to imagine what he would want as a gift, and work backwards from there to determine a criteria for gift selection.

 _“What do I like?”_ is a hard question for him to answer.

He likes Wanda, but he doesn’t want anyone to wrap her up and present her to him. She is already his, anyway.

What does he like about Wanda?

He likes that she listens to him. He is aware that he is strange in many ways—even if he was not a powerful synthetic being, he would have a strange personality. He is not human, he is not inhuman, he is somewhere in the uncanny valley. But Wanda doesn’t see him like that, really. She doesn't ignore what he says, or avoid him. She is strange too, and they are strange together, which makes them normal.

So, the first criteria for a gift is that it must make someone feel like they have been listened to.

Vision spies on everyone in the team for two weeks, listening carefully any time they say the phrase “I want--”

Which proves to be a frustrating endeavor when it comes to Tony, who likes to dramatically cry “Oh my god I want to die!” every time he experiences a minor inconvenience. Vision is not going to kill Tony for Christmas.

He thinks about why he likes being listened to.

Not everyone listens to him. Sam disagrees with Vision on a lot of things, usually pertaining to politics. This means that sometimes after an argument Sam and Vision ignore each other. It always blows over and they are friends again, but it upsets Vision each time. He doesn’t like feeling ignored, because it makes him feel like Sam doesn’t like him.

The second criteria for a gift is that it must make someone feel liked, then. Vision tries to pay attention to when people look the happiest, hoping that it’s a good indicator of when they are feeling liked (because being liked always makes him feel happy). Wanda looks happiest when she wakes up next to Vision, which makes Vision feel strange in a good way. Natasha looks happiest when she’s insulting Tony. Vision is trying to figure out how to use that to come up with a gift idea when Natasha approaches him to ask for joint cooking lessons. 

Vision realizes that it’s going to be harder than he thought to find appropriate gifts just by watching his teammates, since they are all good at hiding things, so instead he compiles a list of important characteristics and tries to come up with ideas that way:

  1. Tony: Smart, nosy, kind. Likes alcohol but shouldn’t drink it, likes sex but shouldn’t have it. Attracted to things that aren’t good for him??
  2. Steve: artistic, moody, lonely. Likes Bucky, children, and making Tony mad. Unable to make conclusions about appropriate gifts with this information.
  3. Wanda: Perfect. Likes me when I spend time with her, and also when I do that thing with my tongue. Do that thing with my tongue whenever she wants it.
  4. Natasha: Mysterious, dangerous, funny. Likes making people uncomfortable, but also making them feel safe. Cooking lessons because she asked for them.
  5. Bucky: Quiet, sad, focused. Likes animals and Steve.
  6. Sam: Compassionate, intelligent, annoying. Likes talking about politics, yelling about politics, and slurring drunkenly about politics. Also cares about veterans.



 Peter has stated that he doesn’t want gifts, and Wade is…

Vision doesn’t like Wade at all.

Trying to pick out the perfect gift for everyone becomes quite fun, after a while. Vision tries to adopt each team members perspective, or what he assumes to be their perspective, and it's interesting. He's not sure if he's doing well, but he tries.

The holiday season is supposed to be festive and cheerful, but a sense of unease settles over the city.

Wanda is the first one to have the nightmare. She wakes up gasping for air, panicked bolts of magic flying from her hands, breaking every piece of glass in their room. Vision does his best to calm her down, but it takes an hour before she can speak.

“It was hell. My brother was there, he told me that it was my fault he died. It was so real,” she whispers, body shaking from fear and grief. “He said that if I was more powerful, if I’d trained harder, I could have stopped all of it. I put the bullet in his heart.”

Nothing Vision says helps and he aches for her. He wishes that he could see through her eyes, so that he could know the perfect thing to say, but he's stuck in his own head. Eventually Wanda manages to fall back to sleep, but it’s fitful, punctuated by frequent bouts of crying. He holds her through all of it, wishing that he was powerful enough to protect her from this.

Over the next few days it gets worse. Wanda stops sleeping because as soon as she closes her eyes she sees Pietro. Vision asks Sam for advice about how to help with nightmares, which is how they discover that Sam, Natasha, and Wanda have all had variations of the same nightmare. Someone they lost, dead and in hell, and blaming them for it.

Steve, Bucky, and Tony confirm they’re having the same nightmares, and they put out a notice to the news.

T’challa and his team arrive shortly after to try and help the situation, because an entire city of insomniacs is slowly inching its way towards chaos.

Vision doesn’t ever dream, so he never has a nightmare. Sometimes he has distressing waking thoughts, but when he closes his eyes all he perceives are his cells repairing themselves. Little bursts of cell repair in his brain and body, like twinkling lights. It’s pretty, but it isn’t a dream. He has no idea why Wanda is so scared by thoughts in her head, or how it can feel like reality when the source of the proprioceptional, visual, auditory, and olfactory information is incorrect. Can’t she sense that it’s just misfiring neurons?

Vision feels alone again, an alien witness to the deterioration of his team and their mental and emotional well-being.

They survive it. The city survives. Vision is glad.

Wade wakes them up before the sun rises. Everyone else is very, very angry considering it’s the first night of real sleep they’ve had in weeks, but after a while they become excited and cheerful. Vision watches them carefully, Wade most of all.

The bag obviously contains a dimensional pocket that allows it to hold everything. It irritates Tony immensely, which amuses Vision.

He notices that Wade consistently gives the perfect gift. By the time he gives Natasha her gift, a gift so perfect that it rightly puts Natasha on edge, Vision has reached the conclusion that something is going on. Something bad.

It is Vision’s turn to receive gifts.

Steve and Vision frequently discuss art and aesthetics. Vision is fascinated by how difficult it is to pinpoint what makes something beautiful, and what makes something art. Steve is just as interested in the philosophy of art, so Vision has predicted that Steve will give him something pertaining to art, their biggest and most satisfying mutual interest. He unwraps the gift and discovers he is correct.

“The Museum of Bad Art,” Vision reads aloud, frowning slightly.

Steve grins. “I discovered that recently. I think when pinpointing what makes something beautiful, it’s useful to pinpoint what makes something ugly. Very interesting book.”

Bucky is wary of him still, but less so these days now that Vision is more secure with himself and his relationship with Wanda. Bucky gives him a portable Chinese checkers set. “I thought you, me, and Wanda could play together.”

Natasha gives him a French recipe book. “Someday we’ll be able to cook everything in there.” He is still flabbergasted by her desire to take cooking lessons with him. With _him_ of all people. Wanda or Sam would make sense, they can eat and taste things. Vision can do neither. Still, he would like to be able to cook for Wanda someday.

Sam gives him a well-worn copy of _Black Like Me_ by John Howard Griffin. “Read it, then find me and let’s have a discussion.” Vision nods, looking at the book with interest.

Wanda gives him a coupon and a kiss on the cheek, which makes him feel that familiar strange feeling. Always strange in a good way.

T’challa gives him a small vase made from the same material as Wanda’s touchstone. The properties of the stone are very interesting indeed. He will commandeer Tony’s lab and examine it in more detail later.

Peter gives him a joke book. They are both uncomfortable.

And finally it is Wade’s turn to give him a gift. Vision stares at him and waits.

Wade pulls the gift out and hands it to Vision. It’s a Polaroid camera and an empty photo album.

“You’re always trying to see everything from everyone else’s perspective. I thought this might help you find your own perspective,” Wade says.

It is a strange gift from a strange man, and Vision carefully considers it. “Thank you,” he says, because he is unfailingly polite. Inside, in his private thoughts, he thinks that he hates Wade.

It’s a strange feeling, but strange in a bad way.


	13. Aleppo

I will not post a chapter today. Instead I mourn for the lives lost in Aleppo.

I don't know where to donate, or how to help. Tomorrow I'll post information if I can find anything legitimate.


	14. The snowman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still processing things. I had originally planned to have something like this happen in the story anyway, but it bled into the grief that I'm feeling for Aleppo. I wrote this to try and articulate and sort through a little bit of the chaos I'm feeling inside. 
> 
> Aleppo. The rise of fascism. The Dakota Access Pipe Line. The Pulse. So many, many things.
> 
> Sometimes I feel like i'm drowning, and I feel powerless. And when I feel powerless, I want to sleep.
> 
> And I think the world wants to sleep. We can't. We can't. Because if we do, we might not wake up again.
> 
> Commenters have suggested donating to the following organizations. I'll be honest, I've been too depressed to really do my research, so please make sure you are donating responsibly. Read up on the organizations before you send money, and always be aware of scams. If you can't donate money, spread awareness. Talk about it in school, talk about it at work, talk about it on tumblr, talk about it on any platform you have. 
> 
> Even just saying "God, can you believe what happened in Aleppo the other day?" can change something by opening a dialogue. If you have the mental fortitude, call your state representatives and congress people and ask them why they aren't saying anything about Syria.
> 
> https://www.whitehelmets.org/en
> 
> https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/syria/
> 
> https://www.icrc.org/en/donate/syria-crisis-appeal
> 
> The following chapter is clumsy and stunted, because inside I am feeling clumsy and stunted. It's not directly related to what is happening in the world, but it relates to attitudes that I've witnessed and even felt within myself. I get so tired of feeling heartbroken, mad, and terrified all the time--sometimes I'm sure I'm part of the problem. I have to cultivate a simmer setting for my rage so that I can maintain my anger.
> 
> What is happening in the world right now isn't normal. Remember that.
> 
> Edit: another link http://www.upworthy.com/7-real-things-you-can-do-right-now-about-the-catastrophe-in-aleppo?c=ufb1

“I just want to sleep,” says the woman in the bright pink faux fur coat, over and over again. Her son, maybe ten years old, lies dead in front of a lopsided snowman. The heat of his blood left gashes in the snow before it cooled and froze. She wonders if maybe she’ll get some sleep, now that he’s no longer laughing.

“I just want to sleep,” says the old man, standing over the remains of his wife in their bed. The ashes are still smoldering, here and there a crumbing bone pokes up from the dust. They were married for fifty years. She wouldn’t stop snoring.

“I just want to sleep,” says the businessman, using the corner of his heavy briefcase to bash in the skull of the man he found sleeping in an alleyway. The businessman has a flashy car and bombshell wife, a new contract that will make him millions. Maybe now, maybe now he can sleep.

“I just want to sleep,” says a city on fire, watching itself crumble from the inside.

And outside the city? The world watches and does nothing.

Oh, maybe they aren’t killing each other yet, maybe it hasn’t reached the point of flames and blood, but they want to sleep too. They watch the pain and fear on their brightly lit screens and say—

“What am I going to do about it? I’m working my ass off just trying to stay alive in this economy. I don’t have time to deal with another crisis.”

Or they say things like—

“It’s the wrath of god. New York is a den of sin, and this is their punishment for allowing those godless mutants to run rampant.”

Or they say things like—

“We have to wait and see what the Avengers will do. It’s too early to intervene, we could make things worse.”

Or—

“If we intervene we might piss off whatever mutant is responsible for this. We don’t want them to come after us.”

Or—

Or—

Or—

Meanwhile people are dying, and fighting, and trying to resist, and hoping that the world comes to their rescue.

It doesn’t.

And the team does its best, but they aren’t able to combat the city _and_ the fatigue after a while. Charles Xavier and his team are trying to help, but as Wanda has already discovered, sleep deprivation and terror have a real impact on one’s ability to control their powers. Dr. Strange is containing what he can, keeping the Nightmare Virus from spreading outside the city, but he’s hardly any better off.

And everyone just wants to sleep. Just for a few hours ignore what is happening and escape. It’s so tempting to shut their eyes to the terror and the powerlessness, but sleep is an oasis that is no longer available to them.

It feels endless.

However, it does end. The tide turns, because it always does. Death and pain cannot last forever, because eventually we force ourselves awake and we rise. We find our strength and we rise. 

And yes the city is broken, the people are broken, but people are weeds. They grow between the cracks in concrete, they take root even in shifting sand, they break through any barrier until their roots reach the water. Their seeds evolved to survive the fires of violence, and in that heat they crack open so that they can plant themselves again when the rains come.

The city sleeps.

In the morning the snowman is gone, melted away into the ground, there for the weeds that will grow again when the earth tilts back towards the sun.


	15. Steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow one of my best friends is coming home for Christmas. I will not be posting tomorrow. I will try to post two chapters on Saturday.
> 
> I really, really didn't want to write today. It was very hard to make myself, because it's been a terrible day. Got home from work, my body is sore, my mind is in turmoil. But I sat down anyway and suddenly Steve's story came to me (finally--his story was supposed to come ages ago, but I kept putting it off). So I wrote and wrote. Two hours and this. Sorry if it's rough, though I'm pleased with it considering it probably would not have existed at all had I just gone to sleep.
> 
> Anyway, I hope all of you are having better days.

Steve stops fucking around eventually, and tells everyone what he wants for Christmas.

“Donate time or money to my art camp,” he says. Tony donates money (he likes kids, but he’s scared of them). Everyone else pledges to donate time.

“You don’t want anything else?” Bucky asks, frowning a little.

“Can’t think of anything I’d actually want. I don’t like having things,” Steve says. “Buy my coffee next week if you really want to get me something, and we’ll call it Christmas.”

An important part of their joint therapy is that they have to get out of the house and do things together. It can’t be anything productive, either. Part of easing them into a semi-civilian life again is forcing them to rediscover the concept of free time and self-care.

Most of the time they just go grab coffee together and sit outside. Steve will sketch and Bucky will keep a running commentary on the people that pass them by.

“Oooh, look at Headphone McBaggy-Pants,” he says, raising an eyebrow as a gangling teenager sulks his way across the road. “You ever see anything so impractical as those pants? What if he has to start runnin—hah, what did I tell you? He has to hike ‘em up. That’s what a _belt_ is for!”

“I like the ones that wear those pants that start out really baggy at the top and then get narrow at the bottom. They look like they have massive asses”

“God, the pants are so tight on women these days. Can you imagine what Dum Dum would have said? Or Peggy?”

“Those shoes are so impractical—if she steps on a sewer grate her shoe is going through it. Watch, watch… oh, well what do you know? I guess she’s used to ‘em. That’s a skill, that is.”

Steve just smiles and sketches silently, letting Bucky have his one way conversation. A side effect of the therapy seems to be that all the words Bucky had bound up when he was under Hydra control come flooding out in a torrent when he's content. He talks almost as much as Tony, but the difference is that Steve likes it when Bucky talks.

Even in the winter they sit outside. It’s cold, but both of them have been colder.

It’s been a tough couple days. Neither of them have been getting good sleep, dreams haunted by people they lost so long ago. Still, they venture out and get their coffee like they normally do, and they sit outside like they normally do. But Steve doesn’t sketch and Bucky doesn’t talk.

Instead they watch, silently. The people that are seated inside all look like drunks, swaying slightly or leaning over their coffees like they’re nursing a whiskey. The people on the street aren’t much better. Everyone looks like a zombie, hollow eyed and aimless.

“Something isn’t right,” says Bucky.

Steve nods, watching the cars carefully. It’s a good thing he is, because he’s able to haul Bucky out of the way as an SUV plows onto the sidewalk and into the side of the café. The crashing of glass, the screams of pain and fear, plunge both of them into soldier mode. Steve helps the civilians, kicks debris away to clear a path out of the café, while Bucky goes to pull the door off the car and render first aid to the unconscious driver.

That morning marks the beginning of the spiral into madness.

Christmas Eve, after the dinner, after the carols outside, after the team falls asleep together on the couches, Steve dreams. It’s not a nightmare but it certainly isn’t a pleasant dream.

Loki stands in front of him.

“Oh, goody. My favorite Avenger, the _Soldier_. I was wondering when our paths would cross,” Loki says. He looks thinner than Steve remembers, smaller without his armor. The sneer is still there, and the coldness in the eyes.

Steve doesn’t say anything, just studies Loki. This has to be a dream, but it feels real.

“Nothing to say? I was hoping you’d berate me. I find moralistic lecturing quite titillating when it’s coming from the right source.” Loki winks suggestively.

Steve approaches Loki, who flinches back a little. But this is a dream, so Steve doesn’t stop. He reaches out a hand to touch Loki’s face, fascinated by the angles. It’s terrible, but his artist eye has always been drawn to Loki. He sees beauty in all things, even this wreck of a man. He traces the curve of Loki’s jaw, judging the angles, trying to memorize every detail so that he can paint it later. He doesn’t know why he wants to, just knows that he wants to. Loki inhales and exhales, breath shaky as Steve explores.

Then Steve runs his hands through Loki’s hair. When Loki came to earth it was slicked back, hard looking, unpleasant and unflattering. Now it falls in soft waves past Loki’s shoulders. Steve studies how it shines in the light, then he turns to try and find a light source. Everything in this… room? Is hazy, dulled, misty. It’s a dream, Steve supposes. It’s not odd that there would be no detail there.

Loki grabs at Steve’s hand, holding it still. “What are you doing?” Loki asks, voice low. Arousal? Or anger? Steve can’t tell. Loki’s pupils are dilated, but that might be from the low light.

Steve remains silent. This is a dream. Even if this were real, he’d have nothing to say to Loki. He withdraws his hand and lowers it to feel at Loki’s shirt. Soft, green. Flatters Loki’s eyes. Strange cut, but it fits Loki’s… what is the term? Aesthetic? Loki’s aesthetic.

“Each of you respond so differently to me, but this has been the strangest reaction so far. Do you have nothing to say to me?” Loki asks, a little desperately.

Steve cocks his head, studies the dream Loki. It has to be a dream, the alternative is too horrifying to contemplate.

“Say something to me!” Loki roars, grabbing Steve’s shoulders and shaking him.

Steve just smiles.

The dream fades into nothingness, and for a few blessed hours Steve drifts in a healing oblivion. Then Wade wakes them up and Steve experiences a hangover for the first time in his life.

It’s hellish, but not as hellish as other things. He says nothing about his dream.

Wade produces their stolen presents from a magic bag, and Steve enjoys watching Tony bristle every time something that shouldn’t fit in the bag is dragged out. Really, considering everything they have encountered, is it so odd?

Steve carefully does not apply that logic to his dream about Loki. That was a dream, nothing more.

Then it’s his turn. The team already volunteered their time for the summer camp, but some of them still give him presents.

T’challa gives him a vibranium fountain pen. “You have left the battlefield, but not the war. Your words can shape the fight. This is a fitting weapon for the job.”

Wanda, of course, gives him the massage coupon. He kisses her cheek. “You’re my favorite,” he says in a stage whisper. Everyone else protests loudly.

Tony does not give him a gift card. “Added it to the donation I already made,” Tony says. “Figured you would have used the gift card on the kids anyway.”

“You figured right,” Steve says, smiling at Tony. They’ve been through so much together. He tries to remember a time that he didn’t like Tony. Then he remembers with utter clarity all the times he didn’t like Tony. Last week there was a good hour when Steve wanted to punch him in the—Steve takes a deep breath. He tries instead to remember a time when he didn’t love Tony like a brother. It’s impossible to remember what that felt like.

Bucky and Peter are communicating via eyebrows (Bucky) and twitching (Peter).

“What did you two do?” Steve asks them, frowning. “I didn’t want anything, you know that.”

“Go get it,” says Bucky.

“Buck…”

“Shut up and just sit back. This is for me as much as it’s for you.”

Steve waits impatiently for Peter to return.

Peter comes back carrying a crate and Steve knows exactly what’s in it before anyone says a thing.

“Oh my god,” he gasps, jumping to his feet. Tears are springing to his eyes immediately.

Bucky grabs the crate from Peter and brings it closer, setting it down in front of Steve.

“I named him Nick Furry. We got him off an adoption site. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know if I was going to get him. There were a few families in line before us. We got the adoption confirmed two weeks ago.”

Bucky opens the crate, and the ugliest pug that Steve has ever seen waddles out, snorting and snuffling. It’s missing one eye, and it has exactly one tooth. The fur around his eyes and muzzle are faded grey.

“He’s perfect,” Steve breathes, kneeling down on the ground and holding his arms out. Nick Furry jogs over immediately, snuffling around at Steve’s fingers and wagging so hard his whole body skitters unsteadily on the tile. “I love you,” he says to Nick Furry, and Nick Furry gums Steve’s fingers happily.

Steve’s so happy that it overwhelms him and tears flow freely down his face. He doesn’t even care. His heart is so full it hurts. He picks up Nick Furry and cradles him in his arms, and Nick licks his face happily. His breath smells like a sewer, but Steve bears it gratefully, cooing at the dog who is still wiggling happily in his arms.

He looks at Bucky.

Bucky’s smile is gentle, his eyes are warm. He looks healthy, if still a little sleep deprived. More like himself these days, less haunted. Right now he looks exactly like the boy that Steve fell in love with, long hair and metal arm non-withstanding.

A movement in the corner of his eye draws his attention away, and he watches as Wade pulls out one last gift.

Steve reaches for it with trepidation.

It’s a scrapbook, filled with newspaper clippings. They’re from news stories covering the last five years. At first he’s scared to read the headlines. He remembers books like this when he was growing up, soldier’s wives would cut out stories about battles as the war progressed. Such gruesome things.

But the first headline—

“ _Gamers Solve HIV Puzzle_ ”

Steve knows only a little about HIV. He knows it’s bad, not as bad as it used to be, but still something that is considered a crisis. He skims the article a little, not understanding much, just that gamers unfolded a protein, and somehow that might lead to breakthroughs for a vaccine. That’s pretty cool, he thinks.

“ _Is the cure for the common cold on the way_?”

The article is about something called DRACO, a drug in development that might be able to eradicate the cold and influenza viruses. That’s… that’s staggering. Steve was born the year Spanish Influenza spread across the United States and sent so many to their graves. It’s quite possible that his health issues arose from that, possible his mother was exposed to it while he was still in the womb and that’s why he was born so sickly. Even these days influenza kills, though not on such an epidemic level.

“ _95-year old Veteran marries boyfriend of 20 years_ ”

The picture under the headline features two silver haired men kissing each other. Steve doesn’t read the story, he just touches a finger to the picture and stares.

_“New Zealand Legalizes Equal Marriage Rights: Parliament Erupts into Song and Dance”_

Again, Steve doesn’t read the story, just stares at the headline and the picture.

He flips forward a few pages.

“ _Wearable device helps steady hand of designer who has Parkinson’s Disease_ ”

It’s an article about an invention that stabilizes the tremors in the hand enough for the woman to write her own name, and even draw. There’s only one device like it in the world, but there may be plans to develop it into more accessible technology in the future.

Steve looks up at Wade.

“Sometimes good things happen too,” Wade says.

Steve can’t quite speak. He holds the book close to his chest and leans down to kiss Nick Furry on the top of his head. Bucky comes to sit next to him.

Outside the sun is starting to rise.


	16. Festival of Lights

Wanda hasn’t celebrated Hanukah since she was a child. It was always a pleasant, contemplative time for her family. Nothing like Christmas, really, which seems so loud and brash (and despite being celebrated all over the globe, somehow a very _American_ holiday). Hanukah in her family was a time for quiet joy, an appreciation for their history and religion.  

Pietro always insisted on lighting the candles, even though they were supposed to alternate. Wanda always let him win the argument, because the look of pleasure on his face as the flame took to the wick was a gift. She loved her brother very much. He was the other half of her heart.

Wade decides that they are going to celebrate Hanukah, a concession to her and Peter. It makes Wanda feel awkward, possibly a little angry. She was fine with Christmas, she was able to keep her distance. She can’t keep her distance from her memories now.

The first night of Hanukah falls on Christmas Eve. When they’re in the midst of eating Wade’s feast, he stands up and pulls a Menorah and a candle out of his kit bag.

“So, I googled the traditions. I’m gonna try to do this right, but bear with me,” he says, setting the Menorah on a small table. “My pronunciation is probably bad, so apologies in advance.”

He proceeds to recite the three blessings.

“ _Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-he-nu Me-lech Ha-olam a-sher ki-de-sha-nu be-mitz-vo-tav ve-tzi-va-nu le-had-lik ner Cha-nu-kah.”_

_“Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-he-nu Me-lech Ha-olam she-a-sa ni-sim la-avo-te-nu ba-ya-mim ha-hem bi-zman ha-zeh.”_

_“Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-he-nu Me-lech Ha-olam she-heche-ya-nu ve-ki-yi-ma-nu ve-higi-a-nu liz-man ha-zeh.”_

Bless his heart, but it’s awful. Wanda winces a little during the whole thing. She looks over at Peter, who has his mask rolled up enough to eat. His mouth is twitching with suppressed laughter.

Wade goes to the kitchen and comes back with a platter of donuts, and everyone takes one. Again, Wanda feels awkward. This used to be a comforting ritual, but tonight it is unfamiliar, performed by people who don’t have the same memories that she does. It is a lonely feeling.

Perhaps that loneliness in her heart is why her brother comes to her in her dreams that night. He always knew when she was adrift. Unlike the nightmares that came the week before, he looks like himself in this dream. Happy, whole, loving. He reaches a hand out to her and she takes it, and they walk along the bank of a river they used to play near when they were children.

“Did you light the candle tonight?” he asks.

Wanda shakes her head. “I didn’t want to.”

Pietro scoffs. “That’s right, I forgot. You only wanted to light the candles because I wanted to.”

“Other way around,” says Wanda, elbowing him gently in the side.

They fall silent again. Wanda can almost smell the water, the sweet smell of decaying leaves, the cold dirt.

“This is a dream,” Pietro says eventually. “But you’re smart enough to know that just because something is a dream, it doesn't mean it isn't real. I won’t waste time trying to convince you of anything. I’m here to give you a piece of advice and a warning, Wanda.”

They stop and Wanda looks at her brother.

In the dream he has aged a little, five years difference showing in a firmer jaw and wiser eyes.

“What is your advice?” she asks.

“Trust the trees,” he says. “When the time comes you’ll know what I mean.”

“Your warning?”

“Don’t trust your dreams,” he says, smiling a little at the absurdity of giving that particular warning in a dream.

Wanda files the information away to be assessed when she wakes up. For these precious few moments she focuses on her brother’s face.

“Where are you?” she asks. In her nightmares he is in hell, but in this dream there is only an overwhelming sense of peace. What is the truth?

“I’m home, Wanda,” he says, kissing her forehead. “Don’t be afraid for me anymore, no matter what your dreams say. Light the candles for me, and remember that I love you.”

When Wanda wakes up the next morning (or rather when she is rudely awoken by Wade) she writes down Pietro’s words in her journal before heading out to join the team.

_Trust the trees. Don’t trust your dreams._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very slowly introducing important things to set up the plot for the next story, which will continue the main plot of the Limerance series.


	17. T'challa

T’challa is always fascinated by the Avengers. He is an honorary member, but practically speaking he is not tangled up with them in the same way that they are tangled up with each other. It’s a side effect of living in close proximity with the same people over many years. They are a family unit, moving as one. He orbits them sometimes, then goes off to his own things. It’s fine. After all, he has his own family unit now; him, Okoye and Everett.

Wade is a strange new addition to the Avengers.

Steve catches T’challa up on the latest news (gossip). “He’s been breaking into the compound on a nearly daily basis, forcing us to live out this weird holiday fantasy. I think Tony’s given up on figuring out how Wade is getting in, honestly.”

“Odd,” says T’challa. “I would think Tony would be working harder to figure out how Wade is doing it, considering what happened in the past.”

“I don't think Tony actually minds anymore,” Steve says. “Tony has never seemed very pro-Christmas, but he’s been participating in this. I could never get him to participate in any of the other team building exercises, but he’s leaping in to this with no complaints at all.”

Steve has asked for T’challa’s assistance following increasing reports of widespread insomnia. Not just insomnia, but nightmares that are eerily, almost exactly similar. T’challa is fascinated by this psychic event, the scientific part of him wishing he could experience it just so he could draw his own conclusions.

Until he dreams about his father that night. A terrifying dream that keeps T’challa awake, huddling in the guest room bathroom, fighting off nausea.

Everett and Okoye don’t need to say anything for T’challa to see that they experienced the nightmares as well.

“My best guess is that New York is haunted,” Everett says, trying to sound unaffected and sarcastic. His eyes are red though, and T’challa wonders which ghosts visited him last night. “Let’s get those Ghost Busters in here.”

“We’ve got our people on it. They’ve ruled out psychic tampering, and spiritual anything. This doesn’t appear to have a cause that we can pinpoint,” Steve says, yawning widely. His jaw clicks and he looks miserable from lack of sleep, eyes red and skin flushed.

T’challa frowns. “Are you running a fever, Steve?”

“No?” Steve asks. “I can’t get sick anymore.”

T’challa looks over at Bucky who is similarly flushed.

“Humor me. Let’s go to the medical wing. Bucky, could you come with us as well?”

Bucky and Steve have the serum which altered their immune systems drastically, and T’challa has consumed the Heart-shaped herb that grants him similar enhancements, so none of them should be ill. But T’challa realizes he feels over warm.

Very quickly they determine that all three of them are running very high fevers. “This internal temperature would bring the onset of brain death in anyone else, but you two run a little hot to begin with,” says the chief nurse who knows Bucky and Steve’s vitals well. “I’m assuming the same for you,” she says to T’challa. “Adjusting for that, I’d say you’re running fevers typically associated with a mild viral infection.”

Absolutely fascinating…

“We need to run tests,” T’challa says. “This can’t be unrelated to the nightmares.”

T’challa remembers the last time he got sick. His father was still alive, then. T’chaka always insisted on tending to his children when they were sick. Although T’challa had long ago passed into his manhood, T’chaka arrived with soup and his own horrible herbal remedy.

“Baba,” T’challa said, and if his voice was high pitched and distressed like a child’s, he blamed it on the fever.

“It will be alright, my son,” T’chaka said, pulling a chair over to the side of the bed and leaning forward to start feeding T’challa a thin broth. “Soon you’ll be well enough to give me headaches again,” T’chaka said fondly.

This is the first time that T’challa will not be nursed back to health by his father, and an irrational part of his heart fears that he will not be able to recover if Baba isn’t there with soup and bitter herbal teas.

But the universe has other plans, and T’challa recovers without the aid of his father.

The team falls asleep together on the couches the night before Christmas, but T’challa, Okoye, and Everett all decide to head back to their guest rooms to sleep. There is an intimacy that they are not a part of, and don’t feel comfortable encroaching on it.

T’challa sleeps well, but is woken rudely by Wade.

“Come on! Time for Christmas presents!”

“’m not,” T’challa says sleepily, brain slightly addled.

“Get up, get up,” Wade says.

“Not going,” T’challa says. Wade grabs his leg and hauls him out of bed. T’challa roars, twists in mid-air, and comes to land with his elbow in Wade’s throat. “You dare touch m--”

“Time. For. Presents,” Wade interrupts with determination.

“I didn’t get anyone anything!” T’challa yells.

“Just shove some shit in a bag and pretend,” Wade hisses.

T’challa realizes that Wade isn’t going to leave him alone, so T’challa takes a quick look through his luggage, pulling out anything that could possibly be given as a gift. He has a tendency to hoard little items in his bag, trying to travel with as much home as possible, so he finds many little treasures. They aren't sentimental, but he still resents Wade for making him part with them.

Wade marches behind T’challa officiously, directing him to wake up Everett who is also told to gather up crap that he could possibly give as a gift. Everett is less of a pack rat than T’challa, so he steals most of his items from the décor around the room, shoving a tiny cactus into a bag in his haste. “You realize you’re going to have to put your hand back in there, right?” T’challa says. Everett groans.

They wake up Okoye next, and she just about murders Wade. “Don’t care,” she growls, attempting to drag her foot out of Wade’s desperate grasp. He’s on the floor, clinging to her leg like a child. Wade finally pulls a gun on her, and although the threat is obviously empty, she’s apparently impressed by Wade’s death wish and acquiesces. She plucks a few items from her luggage, and turns to follow them to the living room to join the others.

T’challa had no idea what Christmas was until very recently. Wakanda did not import outside media, outside ideas, until the last decade or so. T’challa didn’t show an interest in anything to do with the outside world until a few years after that. He was very stubborn.

Still, this seems to be pleasant enough. Everyone seems happy with the little trinkets he passes out, pleased by his participation more than the gifts, he suspects.

He does not expect to receive anything in return, but Wade announces his name next, and proceeds to pull out a gift for him from Steve.

Steve has drawn the palace with loving detail, and T’challa is very impressed. “All from memory,” he says, in awe. Steve nods happily.

Bucky gives T’challa a little black panther plushy. T’challa grins, stroking the soft material. “Squeeze it,” Bucky says, so T’challa does.

The toy lets out a rather unimpressive, high pitched squeak. Okoye starts laughing uncontrollably. T’challa rolls his eyes. “Thank you, Bucky.”

Natasha gives him a candle, Sam gives him a Captain America bottle opener, Wanda gives him the same coupon that she’s given to everyone else, Vision gives him… cheese, and Tony gives him a stack of cash. T’challa realizes they were as unprepared for his attendance at these festivities as he was, and he smiles.

Peter’s gift is oddly thoughtful. They have interacted with each other on very few occasions. Their only real conversation surrounded T’challa’s observations on American candy and its unappealing packaging. “It doesn’t look like it contains food. Why would anyone want to eat something that came in such poisonously colored wrappers?”

Peter has unwrapped a wide variety of candies and re-wrapped them in brown parchment paper, writing the names on each little package. T’challa grins at Peter. “You’re an odd one.”

Peter smiles, unoffended.

T’challa tenses as Wade pulls out the last gift, worried that it will be something too intimate and perfect.

Wade hands him a piece of paper. “I Dead-pooled my resources, got in touch with some shady peeps, and tracked down the names of key vibranium smugglers. These are the only people that have stock left.”

It’s a very good gift indeed. Intimately perfect even. T'challa has been looking for these names for a couple years now, and Wade has just handed him the conclusion of his mission. T’challa is uneasy rather than grateful.

Everett and Okoye receive perfect gifts from Wade as well, but less intimate ones. Wade gives Everett a beer cozy with a ground hog in profile that says “Same day, different shit.” It’s a reference to some movie that T’challa has probably refused to see, but Everett seems very pleased. Okoye is given some horrible looking weapon with too many points and sharp edges. T’challa doesn’t know how someone would use something like that, but she looks distressingly fascinated.

T’challa makes eye contact with Steve and knows they are wondering the same thing.

What is Wade going to give to Tony?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slowly, slowly catching up. Work is ver' stressful, life is ver' stressful. Probably catch up on Christmas Eve, just take a lazy day to write and finish this. Strange little creative journey.


	18. Following Yonder Star

When T'challa comes to he's mostly buried under a bank of snow, struggling out of the hold of a nightmare. The blizzard is bad and getting worse. T’challa is so tired and cold. He knows roughly where he is in the city, by which he means he knows he’s in the city. Exhaustion and unfamiliarity with the area makes him feel like he’s adrift in the ocean, not mildly lost in a mostly gridded out, relatively navigable urban environment. He just wishes he could sleep.

He doesn’t know where the team is, and everything is so quiet right now. Why is it quiet? It shouldn’t he quiet. They’ve been fighting for hours, an unending wave of psychotic civilians. It shouldn’t be so quiet.

The last thing he remembers is the team, fighting like one despite their fatigue, Okoye with her fists, Everett with a borrowed stun gun. They agreed non-lethal against civilians, but the civilians did not receive the memo. T'challa got knocked out by a blow to the head from a crowbar, wielded by a woman wearing a horribly pink coat. When he woke up the fighting had moved on. They must not have seen him.

He hopes to god that Everett is still alive. He knows in the back of his head that Everett has perfectly respectable combat training, but he isn’t enhanced. T’challa can walk off things that would kill Everett.

Okoye isn’t enhanced, but she could probably walk off things that would kill T’challa. He doesn’t worry about her like he worries about Everett.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a flash of blue-white light.

“Tony?” he calls. Is it Tony? It dances off into the distance, so T’challa follows. It’s always just a little too far ahead for him to see who it is, but it isn’t Tony. He realizes that pretty quickly. Tony would have responded to him by now. Still T’challa follows. The light is better than the endless, darkening snow. The street lamps aren’t turning on, so the power grid is still offline. The little light is proof that something is still alive in this city and it gives him the hope he needs to keep panic at bay; whether it is friend of foe, or hallucination. 

It pauses at a cross street, and T’challa nearly catches up to it. He gets close enough to see the silhouette of a woman, but the details of her face are lost in the falling snow.

“Who is there?” she calls. “Stay where you are.”

“I am T’challa,” he calls back.

There is a beat of silence.

“You’re more than a little lost, aren’t you, little Avenger?” Her voice is warm with amusement. “Come on, then. Let me be your Rudolph.”

“Thank you,” he calls, trying to catch up, trying not to bristle at being called 'little'. She is always just a little too far ahead to catch up to, though. No matter how fast he walks, she’s always faster.

The way she walks, swagger and grace, masculine and feminine, triggers a memory.

_“You’re more than a little in trouble, aren’t you, kid?” she asks. Her hair is a bright halo around her face, her eyes are turned up at the corners, fey and slightly otherworldly. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out, just need to wait for a distraction.”_

_“Like what?” he asks, incredulously. “Get me out of here!” He had set out into the jungle to complete his right of passage. He’s supposed to be becoming a man. Instead, he is trapped in a large cage like an animal, deadly poachers sitting only a little way away, the orange light of their campfire just visible beyond their truck._

_“Like that!” she says, smiling at a suddenly stormy sky. Lighting comes crashing down, and judging by the screams it hits directly in the center of the ring of poachers. She aims a kick at the rusty lock that’s keeping his cage closed. It’s no match for the heavy boots on her feet, the strength of her long legs. “Come on, kid.”_

_He bristles at being called a ‘kid’ but he follows her, and they escape into the jungle together._

_For a week she stays with him, telling him stories about her travels through other lands. He’s never left the borders of his country before. He feels embarrassed by this, for some reason, when before it was a point of pride. “New York City is great,” she says. “If you ever make it there, you have to check out the music scene.”_

_He will do that, he promises. She tells him he should also go see the Grand Canyon, and he promises to do that too. He’ll promise her anything, he realizes. He thinks he might be in love with her. Her humor, her intelligence, her worldliness, her vitality, her volatility. She is like lightning to his spine, and he kisses her on an impulse. She laughs at him and teaches him how to kiss properly. She teaches him how to do many things properly._

_He’s working up the courage to ask her to be his queen someday. They fall asleep in each other’s arms. When he wakes up, he is alone._

_When he leaves the jungle he is sobered, more cautious, more determined. He has become a man._

“Just keep walking straight and you’ll find them in no time,” she says, turning back to him. He can’t see her. He needs to see her, but he knows somehow that if he gets any closer she’ll disappear immediately.

“Thank you,” he says gratefully. “Who are you?”

But a great gust of wind picks up and if she answers her name is lost in the storm.


	19. Nightmare Before Christmas: Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part one of four.

They’re calling it the Nightmare Virus. It’s absurd, but it sticks.

After the news reports that it’s a virus, the city falls apart. It was a matter of time, but when everything goes to shit no one is prepared for how brutal it gets. Mothers killing their children, husbands killing wives, public executions _brutal_. The Avengers are there, fighting in shifts. None of them can sleep during their off shift of course, but they fall into a waking stasis for five hours, sat at tables with coffee and protein shakes, until it’s their turn to head out into the fray again.

The X-Men are helping, as are the Fantastic Four, and various other lone wolf vigilantes. But it’s a relatively small militia against an entire city of surprisingly well armed and shockingly sadistic insomniacs. It’s like the nightmare has become reality. It won’t end. It won’t end.

You stop one mob of lunatics, but where do you put them? Nine times out of ten the cops are out there killing civilians too, so it’s not like you can trust them to escort people to a holding cell. There aren’t enough holding cells anyway. People are killing each other in those little, over crowded cages already.

Anyone with an ounce of magic or psychic ability is recruited to try to keep people calm. Little camps pop up around the city, islands of calm, but it brings more than one enhanced to a breaking point. Wanda is the first to crack. It happens unexpectedly. Exhaustion knocks her unconscious, and the umbrella of her red magic pops. In less than an hour, fifty people are dead, and the rest have wandered off back into the city to kill and be killed. Jean Grey cracks soon after, unable to cope with all the minds under her power. She nearly kills everyone before Charles can take over.

“Alright, okay, this can’t be a naturally occurring virus, right?” Peter says to no one in particular.

“Right,” says Tony immediately. The rest of the team look on blankly. “Probably. I don’t know. I feel like my brain is in my ass right now.”

They giggle deliriously, like they’re drunk.

“If it’s not natural, it’s created,” Peter says.

“Right,” says Tony.

“Where is it possible to create a virus in this city?”

“The subway,” says Tony.

They dissolve into frantic laughter again, and Peter falls off his chair.

Vision, who is able to think clearer than anyone at the moment since he requires no sleep at all, sighs. “I’ll begin looking for labs that do viral research.”

“I think I’m going to die,” says Natasha quietly.

Bucky is gazing at his metal arm in fascination, watching how it moves and reflects the light.

Peter and Tony are no longer laughing. They are both openly weeping now, clinging to each other on the floor. “It hurts so much,” Peter whimpers.

“I just want to sleep,” Tony says, over and over again.

Steve gets up and leaves the room.

They are in the tower, which he hates. The compound feels more like a home, while this place feels like a monument to Tony’s ego. It’s cold and ugly inside. It reminds him of the days before he found Bucky, when he was lost and adrift in the world.

Sleep deprivation is affecting each of them differently. It makes Tony and Peter overly emotional, which grates on Steve’s nerves. It makes Bucky act like he’s high, which is mildly amusing and definitely adorable. Natasha becomes even more morbid than she already is.

And Sam becomes cruel. He’s on shift right now, outside fighting with a small group of X-men, which is good. If he were here right now, Steve would probably punch his head right off his shoulders.

 _“God damn coward,”_ Sam’s voice echoes in his memory.

Someone needs to stay off the field to organize. There are enough fighters, but there aren’t enough tacticians. It makes sense.

“ _Coward.”_

I’m more than just my body. I have a mind.

_“Right, right. We got doctors and scientists out the ying-yang, but we need Mr. Art-School to tell us how to punch. Fucking man up and hit some people, Steve. We’re dying out there while you’re sitting in here, twiddling your thumbs.”_

Sleep deprivation does nothing to Steve, externally. He never used to sleep well. He learned how to cope with the delirium of sleepless, feverish nights, mind lost to the rattle of his lungs as they filled with liquid. He learned how to fake lucidity so the shift manager wouldn’t send him home.

Inside though…

Inside Steve burns. The anger that he’s been learning to tame is eating at his heart, settling in his stomach as a sick feeling he can’t shake. He knows how to hold his tongue when it’s necessary. They’re at war right now, so it’s necessary.

But inside, he wants to tell Sam—

“ _You’re dead weight on the team. Your biggest contribution is drawing fire away from the people who can actually get things done. You can't build anything useful, you aren't strong, and you aren't smart. Loyalty isn't a super power, Sam. You should've stuck to holding Veteran's hands and pretending like you make a dent in the suicide statistics_.”

He wants to tell Natasha—

_“I say I trust you, but I don’t really. If someone betrayed the team you would be the first person I would suspect. You’re always going to be a spy.”_

He wants to tell Tony—

_“If your father met you today he’d be horrified by how weak and selfish you are. You weren't his greatest creation. I was, and you know it."_

And Bucky…

_“I resent you for existing. If you hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t be an invert. I would have found a woman and settled down, and been normal. I wouldn’t have followed you into the army, I wouldn’t have become this… this thing that’s only good enough to punch bad guys. I wouldn’t have tried to follow you into the ice, I wouldn’t have woken up in this hell they call a future. It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault.”_

Steve goes up to the roof and gazes out at a city on fire, and tries hard not to break anything he can’t fix.


	20. Nightmare Before Christmas: Part 2

Stephen Strange knows that most people think he’s an asshole. They think that because he is. He’s been at peace with that since a very young age. His problem is that he has a sharp tongue and he’s always liked cutting people with it. Same instinct compelled him to go to medical school and pick up a scalpel. Not everyone gets into the business purely because they want to help people.

These days he’s a little mellower. Walking away from a career as a neurosurgeon (being forced to walk away from it) was probably the best thing that ever happened to him, as far as mitigating his asshole-ish-ness. He’s more prone to listening before he speaks, and considering his words before opening his mouth. He’s also ever so slightly more _kumbayah_ in regards to his general feelings towards other people—he doesn’t wish immediate death on anyone who walks too slowly in front of him, nor does he long to inflict pain on people who enjoy Michael Bay movies. Anymore. It’s been a very long time since anyone punched him in the face.

Stephen knows his strengths and weaknesses.

                Strengths: His mind, his sense of humor, his sense of style, his artichoke dip recipe.

                Weaknesses: His temper, his inability to suffer fools graciously, his temper.

Tony Stark is an infuriating fool. Stephen wants to throttle him nearly as soon as he meets him.

“This is a really cool bowling ball!” Tony cries, picking up the Orb of Agamotto in one hand and moving his arm back like he’s about to roll it along the ground. Stephen’s heart leaps into his throat and he rescues the relic before Tony can break anything.

“Don’t. Touch. Anything,” Stephen growls. “Sit Down. Tell me why you’re here.”

He places the orb back in its stand, and turns to sit at the desk opposite his guests.

“Uh, our source said that you are the most powerful wizard in New York City,” Tony says. His companion (Bucky Barnes, Stephen realizes with mild interest) rolls his eyes.

Stephen smiles brightly. “Looks like your friend doesn’t agree with that assessment of my skill level.”

“Wanda is the most powerful wizard,” Bucky says proudly, folding his arms.

“Ah, miss Maximoff. Technically she is the most powerful witch, but yes. Very powerful. Would be more powerful with training. She’d kill less humanitarians, too.”

Bucky’s arm twitches and Stephen winks at him.

 _Oh, I really must love courting death,_ Stephen thinks, with very little real self-recrimination. _I’m the worst._

“Right, well, we need help stopping the virus thingy that’s giving everyone nightmares,” Tony says, nudging Bucky in the side to get him to stop giving the death stare to Stephen. “Before everyone is dead would be preferable.”

“I’m doing what I can. I’ve placed borders around the city to stop anyone coming in or going out. It seems to be stopping the spread to the rest of the country, so far.”

“No, like… help us make an anti-virus,” Tony says.

Stephen sighs. “I’m not that kind of doctor, Mr. Stark. I’m a brain surgeon. But perhaps since you’re here you can help me fix my toaster, since you’re an engineer.”

“First,” Tony says, holding up a finger, “I totally could fix your toaster. I could fix your furnace, your car, your blender, that six-speed vibrating stick that you got up your ass, because I’m an actual genius and I don’t even have to overcompensate with titles--I hold three doctorates, but I don’t insist on people calling me Doctor Stark like a douchebag. That’s just first. Second,” Tony says, holding up a second finger, “I know your specialty isn’t in virology, spunk-bucket. We already got a virologist on board, but the virus is affecting structures in the _brain_. We need someone who is very familiar with the brain, preferably with hands on experience, bonus if he’s got magic fingers and a stupid goatee. You fit the bill, thought we’d try here before seeing if The Amazing Johnathan was available.”

“Third?” Stephen asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Third, can you pull this out of a hat?” Tony asks, holding up a middle finger.

“Get out of my sanctorum,” Stephen says, pointing them towards the exit.

They leave, Bucky turning around to flip him off before slamming the door.

“The comment about Maximoff was unnecessary,” Stephen says to himself quietly.

He is an asshole, but he's still charming most of the time. People like him. But there isn’t a single person in his life that he has not verbally maimed to some degree. Generally he’s worse to people that he’s closest to. It’s very rare that he’s appalling to strangers or acquaintances.

Sometimes people think that something bad happened to him in his childhood to make him the way he is. In reality he had a fairly pleasant, if boring, childhood. He wasn’t bullied, he wasn’t abused; he had friends, he was loved. People generally seem disappointed that they can’t point to a moment in his life and go “There, that Christmas present that he really wanted and didn’t get, that relationship that ended badly, that time he got fucked over at work...”

He got every Christmas present he ever asked for, he’s still friends with every single ex he’s ever had, and he’s never worked with anyone who was less than professional.

He’s just very, very bad at people a lot of the time because he hates them. Their voices dig into his brain, their petty conversations, their insipid hobbies, their bad perfumes and cheap clothing.

But he’d lay his life down for any of them in an instant, and that just makes him hate them more. Knowing that in his own mind he values their cheap lives above his own. It’s not just because of the oath he swore when he gained the right to literally fuck with someone’s head. It’s just something in him that is there, maybe the only thing that prevents him from being a true sociopath. He hates people, but he also loves them. Try to work that one out, right?

Stephen takes fifteen minutes before calling the number on the business card that Tony left on his desk. Just because he hates the man doesn’t mean he won’t do everything he can to help stop this epidemic. Depending on which virologist they got working on the issue this might actually go somewhere.

_Kumbayah._


	21. Nightmare Before Christmas: Part III

When they find and apprehend the idiot that engineered the virus it isn’t satisfying.

He’s a kid working out of a lab at the CDC, and he isn’t trying to punish the world. He isn’t trying to kill anyone. He’s trying to save them all, he says.

“You don’t know what’s coming. We have to stay awake, we have to. The dreamer is coming, and if I don’t complete my research—please, please believe me,” he cries.

His hair is unwashed, stubble and acne spread across his jaw. His eyes, when they aren’t bugging out of his head with panic, would be kind. You can tell he’s the sort of guy that laughs easily, probably tells jokes badly and ruins the punchlines accidentally. He remembers to call his mom on her birthday and mother’s day, and he cries during the opening of Up! He’s a _kid._

A kid that’s responsible for hundreds of deaths.

“Please,” he says, tears streaming down his face. “I have to find a way to stop the dreaming.”

“Kid, you’re lucky we kept this from spreading outside the city,” Tony says through clenched teeth.

The kid deflates. “It didn’t make it out?”

“No.”

“Then I’m too late,” he says hollowly. “I’m sorry. I tried to save us. Please remember that."

He goes quietly.

There's nothing satisfying about any of it.


	22. Nightmare before Christmas: Part $%^*

“Even if we can synthesize an anti-virus for this, it’s going to take months to make enough, and it will be very hard to distribute it. As it is, people can’t live with sleep deprivation for that long. We’re seeing psychosis now on a wide-spread level, and we’re only a week in. Eventually we’re going to see a rise in fatal heart attacks and strokes,” Dr. Cho explains. She has dealt with sleep deprivation very well, and Wanda suspects that Dr. Cho must frequently go without sleep for days in a row.

“So we’re fucked,” Tony says.

Dr. Cho doesn’t bother to confirm it. It’s obvious.

“Not on my fucking watch,” Wade says. “I’m Santa Claus.”

It’s hard to tell if sleep deprivation is affecting Wade, since he is always slightly psychotic.

“What do you plan to do?” Dr. Strange asks, curiously.

“This,” Wade says, pointing at his belt dramatically.

“Uh,” says Sam, for the rest of them. Then Wade presses the belt buckle and disappears.

“Okay,” says Tony. “Who knew he could do that? Did you know he could do that, Pete? I’m freaking out right now.”

“Oh my god,” says Dr. Strange. “The absolute fool.”

“What just happened?” asks Bucky.

“He’s about to shatter the time line,” says Dr. Strange. “Someone has been messing with linear time, but I couldn't track them down. I think I found my man."

"How did you know?" Natasha asks. "If someone is messing with time, wouldn't things just always be as they had always been? How do you notice something like that?"

Dr. Strange smiles at her approvingly. "Good questions. There are signs, it's impossible to truly change the order of things once they've happened. Reality remembers the shape it used to be and tries to snap back to it, like elastic. I first noticed the changes as a sense of mild unease, an inability to remember the order in which events took place. Then events started happening out of sequence; I would have groceries before leaving the house to get them, that sort of thing. Cause and effect began to break down faster and faster.”

“What is he planning on doing?” Steve asks.

“I think he’s going to assassinate our virologist before he has a chance to infect New York City,” Dr. Strange says, grimly. “We must prevent this at all costs.”

“I mean, I don’t want to be _that_ guy, but it doesn’t exactly sound like a bad idea,” Tony says.

“It is a very bad idea, because he is about to remove the cause for the effect, like kicking the leg out from under a one legged table stacked high with hornet nests and glass. He kills our virologist before he has a chance to infect his first patient, but that doesn’t automatically un-infect everyone. Time doesn’t reverse like that, it splits and branches instead, if the interference is minimal. It _shatters_ if the interference is great, and this counts as a great interference. Time is about to become unmoored, Mr. Stark. The universe doesn’t like that much, it has defense mechanisms in place and they aren’t pretty,” Dr. Strange says. “If we don’t stop him we could end up in a very different universe.”

“What do we do to stop it?” Wanda asks.

Dr. Strange regards her for a moment before answering. “You and I are going to try to reason with a lunatic, and then we’re going to try to make sure we don’t branch off too far from where we were originally heading. I’ll need your help if you’ve willing to give it.”

Wanda nods quickly.

“Wanda,” Vision says, anxiously.

Wanda kisses him on the cheek. “I have to try.”

Dr. Strange makes a series of complicated gestures, and Wanda watches as the world around them stops, then slowly reverses, gaining speed until they are standing in an empty lab. It's a dizzying feeling.

“We are effectively invisible for the time being. We must try to locate our virologist before Wade does. I don’t know how far he’s gone back, but I’m hoping he’s lazy and hasn’t gone back farther than this,” Dr. Strange says quietly. Wanda nods.

She doesn't want to think about what will happen if they're too late. She has a feeling that they don't get a second chance at this, even with time travel at their disposal.


	23. Wade

Wade hates Christmas, but Wade loves money.

Wade would do almost anything for money. Wade has done almost anything for money. He’s hooked, he’s sold drugs, he’s stolen, he’s killed (obviously). Wade has worked legitimate jobs before, but there’s something about him that makes it almost impossible to hold down anything like that for long. His lack of filters, his lack of dedication to quality customer service, his tendency to shoot alarm clocks (and people). Certainly a 9-5 job is not something he can have now, not with his mug.

 _Maybe Hollywood will have a place for me when they reboot Nightmare on Elm Street_ , he thinks with no small amount of amused self-loathing.

So when he’s offered $2 million from an anonymous source to keep the Avengers busy with a “Perfect Christmas”, he takes it. The job offers half the money up front. Wade loves money.

He wasn’t sure why someone would pay him that much for something so stupid. Maybe to keep the Avengers distracted from the spread of the Nightmare Virus, maybe to keep them off balance, caught in old mostly traumatic memories. Wade doesn’t know. Wade doesn’t really care.

He doesn’t hate them (not hating them means he’d have to be paid $10 million per person up front to even consider taking a job against them; that’s Deadpool Company Policy). But non-harmful obstruction is much more negotiable.

He doesn’t feel guilty. It’s not like they care when he gets shot, so he figures he’s due a little harmless revenge against them for being dicks most of the time.

So he throws his back into the job, despite his distaste for the holiday season. He tries to make it good for them, really good. He stalks each of them with the sort of dedication that can be bought for $2 million in cash. He goes back in time to watch them each as children, tries to pinpoint important moments and memories, and uses that information to get a perfect gift. He steals the presents they got for each other to make sure what he got will stand out. Also because it adds a sense of drama.

So maybe he’s time travelling more than he should, and maybe he steals a couple things that affect the timeline more than he thought they would. So what? It all evens out in the end. It always does.

And then little Kid Charlemagne fucks up New York City, and threatens to ruin the “perfect Christmas” that the rest of Wade’s money is riding on.

What’s one more pebble in the time stream?

He’s not sure exactly when the first person gets infected with the Nightmare Virus, but he goes back in time a full month.

He doesn’t know the virologists name, just knows that he looks like a sad golden retriever, so he breaks into the CDC at night and pulls up the staff roster, each name conveniently accompanied by a picture.

“James Rill,” Wade says, pulling up the address from another database. “Gonna getcha, getcha, getcha.”

Wade doesn’t like killing people who are messed up in the head the way this kid is, and Jimmy Rill is definitely messed up in the head. He’s messed up in the head but he’s also trying to save people (in his messed up way) which means he isn’t going to stop. Ever. They’ll put him in prison and little Jimmy will find a way to get out and do this again. He needs to be stopped, for his own good, and for the good of everyone else.

Sometimes Wade thinks his real super power (besides healing factor and his amazing ass) is that he can survive getting his hands dirty. He’ll do what it takes to do what’s right, even if it’s wrong.

Of course, every super villain is the hero of their own story, so Wade tries to not buy into his own bullshit too much.

This though. He knows this is necessary. Not just because he wants the rest of his money, but because this kid has opened Pandora’s box. Wade is sure that someone out there has tried to make a virus like this; the difference is this kid actually succeeded. This is going to reinvigorate every asshole out there who thinks this is the next step of warfare, genocide, population control, etc.

Wade lets himself into Jimmy’s apartment. Tiny shoebox apartment, smells vaguely of stale take out, trash and bachelor smell—two parts foot smell to one part ball smell, a little sprinkling of bad aftershave here and there.

The fridge closes behind Wade and he turns to see that Jimmy is awake, raiding the freezer.

“Cherry Garcia. Nice,” he says. Jimmy drops the carton in his panic, hand skittering backwards on the counter for the knife block that stands next to the stove. “Before you do that, I need to ask you a question. Have you infected anyone yet?”

Jimmy stops, blinking rapidly. “What? What are you—I don’t,” he blusters. Wade pulls out a gun.

“Kid. I know what you’re making. I just want to know if it’s out in the world yet.”

Jimmy shakes his head. “I haven’t managed to get it to replicate yet. Please, it’s very important that I--”

“Nah,” says Wade. “Whatever douche canoe that’s coming for us, we don’t fight shit like that by doing what you’re planning on doing. You end up killing a lot of people, you know.”

“Kill… you’ve seen it?” Jimmy asks.

“I’ve seen it. It kills about a quarter of the population of New York City in one week.”

“It needs to. It has to become a crowd disease, it needs to become endemic like the flu. It’s the only way to counteract the dreamer. I’ve seen it, I’ve seen what he does,” Jimmy says. “We have to evolve, or we will all die.”

“Sorry. I’ve seen what _you_ do, but there’s no evidence to justify what you’ve done. Nothing to back up your claims. You’re not going to stop though, are you?” Wade asks.

Jimmy shakes his head. “I can’t. Just like you can’t.”

Wade pulls the trigger, the bullet is out of the gun, then it freezes in midair, caught in a glowing red tendril of magic.

“Hey Wanda,” he says, turning to wave at her over his shoulder.

“Wade, please don’t. You’re about to shatter the timeline,” she says.

“Shatter the what now?” Wade asks, already not paying attention.

There’s an explanation, a lot of hooey. Dr. Strange watches him with mild distaste, and Wade spends some time thinking about how many severed fingers he could stuff into Dr. Strange’s nostrils. Eventually Wanda stops, looking at him with wide, imploring eyes.

“Okay,” Wade says, before unsheathing a katana and beheading Jimmy in one smooth, unstoppable movement. Wanda screams and Dr. Strange howls in furious terror, before everything sort of goes--

*ping*


	24. Silent Night

Silence, darkness, cold like Wade’s never known. If he could die, he would be dead.

“Oh, you silly little man,” a voice says. It comes from all around him. The voice comes from inside him, too, leaking out of his body. “Time is a thin sheet of ice over a deadly sea. Most people tread so carefully, but you’ve been stomping around, dropping hot coals and hammers.”

“Who are you?” he asks.

“Someone who can’t touch you, even if I wanted to.”

Wade tries to hammer dance, but he can’t move at all. “Right, cool. Name?”

The voice smiles, and it isn’t a nice smile. “I am that which devours all. I am that which waits at the end of the universe to close the door. I am that which cleans up after the party.”

“I’m gonna call you Consuela,” Wade says, flippantly, ignoring the pit of dread in his stomach. He just wanted his $2million, he didn’t want to break the universe. Why does everything always turn to shit? “So, how do I get out of here, huh? Cause I don’t want to be rude, but the decorations leave a little to be desired.”

“Oh, I’m sure they leave everything to be desired. We are nowhere. We are nothing. Normally I am alone. I find I rather dislike company.”

“Then help me get out of here,” he says emphatically. “I promise I’ll never come back.”

The voice laughs. “I am unused to people being… funny, around me. They think it will be disrespectful, and they’re always so eager to respect me.”

“Oh, I respect you. I just think I could respect you better if I was somewhere and something, instead of here.”

The voice hums thoughtfully. “You’ve rather made a mess of things. I could put you back, but I’d have to undo so much. It would hardly be the same. Do you really want to go back?”

“What… what would you have to change?”

“Well, you broke the whole damn thing trying to stop little James Rill. I assume you would like to keep a universe where he never succeeded in making the virus. In that case you must sacrifice something precious to you. There must be an exchange, a payment made.”

“Fuck,” says Wade, emphatically. “Okay, lemme think about this.”

“By all means, take your time.”

Wade knows he’s the only one that can do anything. But what can he sacrifice? It’s not like he actually has anything or anyone he cares about. Not enough that it would feel like a sacrifice. He knows that he needs to actually sacrifice something here. They'll know if it doesn't hurt. Fuck.

Then it comes to him, and he groans with real pain. “Oh god, I don’t get to keep my money, do I?”

“It’s not like you have it now,” the voice reminds him.

“But I have it in principle!” Wade yells. “Fuck, fine. I won’t take the money.”

“You can’t have Christmas with the Avengers, either. In order for them to catch Rill in time, they have to be paying attention. There were signs they missed because you were distracting them.”

Wade shrugs. “’course I’m not gonna do any of that shit now. I’m not getting paid.”

The voice chuckles. “My little mercenary. I almost wish I didn’t have to let you go. This is the closest I’ve come to having you, finally.” The voice sighs. “I shall just have to go back to loving you from afar.”

“Whoa, love? You don’t even know me, friend,” Wade says, alarmed.

“I know you now.”

And then the universe remakes itself around Wade, and he screams and screams and screams.


	25. Tony

Tony loves Christmas, but it’s a complicated thing. He’s good with the presents, he can do that, he has money. He’s not good with the emotional side of things, because the moment he loses his carefully maintained layer of cynicism he remembers that he never got to celebrate Christmas with his parents again, after the year they discovered he was getting high in order to make it through Christmas dinner.

That sort of thing tends to make it hard to really get into the spirit of things.

He got drunk one night and anonymously offered a job to Deadpool to force the Avengers (himself included) into making the season bright. He guesses a part of him thought that if there was something he could resent, he could get close to enjoying the holiday without completely exposing his heart. But Deadpool didn’t take the job, and the month of December has been mostly uneventful, barring the thwarting of a terrified little lab flunky at the CDC who was trying to make a nasty virus. Tony wasn’t paying attention much to the details.

It’s 2pm on Christmas morning, and he’s debating getting out of bed, when someone knocks on his door. It’s Steve. “Hey Tony,” he says. “Get up and join us in the common room.”

Tony groans, but gets dressed and wanders into the common room. His professionally decorated tree is nowhere to be seen. Instead there is a short, ugly little thing. “What the hell?”

“We’re decorating our own tree this year,” says Steve, handing Tony an ornament. It’s painted newspaper. Tony raises an eyebrow at Steve. “Put it on the tree, asshole,” Steve says, frowning at him.

Tony puts it on the tree.

Slowly he begins to realize there’s a smell in the air, like vanilla and tire rubber. “Oh god, they’re burning the cookies,” Bucky says, running off to the kitchen.

“Cookies?” Tony asks.

“Yeah, Sam and Natasha decided to come back from Violet’s early, give us a Christmas meal. Natasha insisted on cookies too. They got back last night after you went to bed.”

Tony pretends like that isn’t a big deal, but inside he feels warm. They came back to be with everyone at Christmas. That… that means so much to him.

Wanda wanders in and places a kiss on his cheek. “Merry Christmas, Tony.”

The rest of the day is spent together, decorating the tree and the not-burnt cookies. Sam kicks them out of the kitchen eventually so he can start making Christmas dinner, and Natasha regales them with tales from some of her seedier years. She’s been drinking vodka, so she doesn’t spare any details.

It’s really fun.

They eat dinner together and it’s delicious. Pepper and Maria come over, bringing a heavenly smelling desert. “Christmas pudding,” Maria says. “It looks like shit in a sock, but it tastes like eating a baby angel.”

When they wander back into the common room after dinner, for after dinner drinks, there is a red velvet bag under the tree. “What the hell is this?” Tony asks, pulling it out. There is a letter on top addressed to him.

He opens it but he doesn’t read it out loud.

_Dear Tony,_

_See? You didn’t have to spend $2,000,000 to have a Christmas with them. They wanted to have a Christmas with you for free. You’re more than your money, and you should try to remember that. You could have just asked them to stay with you, and they would have. Try it next year and see for yourself._

_I hope today was everything that you hoped it would be,_

_Santa_

Tony folds the letter up and tucks it away into a pocket, ignoring the curious looks of the team.

He considers the bag for a moment, then he stands up and drags a chair in front of the tree and sits down.

“Okay kids,” he says, digging round in the bag. “The first present goes to--”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that 2017 is a good year for you. Remember to take care of yourselves and those around you. We make the world; we can't afford to be passive.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
